California SB 947 — Employment: Automated Decision Systems

SUMMARY

SB 947 limits employer reliance on automated decision systems in employee discipline and termination and adds human-corroboration, postuse-notice, and employee-data-description requirements when reliance is primary.

WHY IT MATTERS

The law distinguishes prohibited sole reliance from primary reliance that triggers specific procedural safeguards. It does not create a blanket prohibition on automated employment decisions.

KEY REQUIREMENTS

• Do not rely solely on an automated decision system when making a disciplinary or termination decision.
• When primarily relying on ADS output for discipline or termination, direct a human to corroborate the decision using data collected or used to produce the output or other relevant corroborating or supporting information.
• Do not use an output that cannot be corroborated or that the reviewer finds inaccurate, incomplete, or misleading.
• Provide the affected employee a stand-alone postuse notice when primarily relying on ADS output and, on request, a meaningful objective description of the employee's own data used by the ADS.

COVERAGE

Employers: Private and public employers within the statute's definition, including specified governmental entities and labor contractors.

Workers: Employees; the enrolled operative provisions do not create the same decision-specific process for applicants or independent contractors.

Exceptions: Qualifying collective bargaining agreements may expressly waive the part when all statutory conditions are met.

Exceptions: A narrow federal-compliance exception applies to specified aircraft, national-security, military, space, and defense operations.

ENFORCEMENT & PENALTIES

California Labor Commissioner may enforce through investigation, temporary relief, citation, or civil action; public prosecutors may also enforce. In specified proceedings, demonstrated ADS use shifts the burden to the employer to show no primary reliance or compliance. The enacted text omits the introduced draft’s express standalone worker damages action.

A civil penalty of $500 per violation, along with the statute's specified injunctive, damages, fee, and cost provisions.

CHANGE HISTORY

1. 2026-10-16
   verification update

   Record re-verified

   Official source links, status, and key dates were checked for this maintenance release.

2. 2026-09-30
   signed

   Governor signed SB 947

   Governor Newsom signed the employment automated-decision-systems measure; the statute expressly becomes operative July 1, 2027.

3. 2026-09-09
   passed legislature

   SB 947 presented to the Governor

   The enrolled measure was presented after final legislative passage.

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