Illinois amended its Human Rights Act with effect from 1 January 2026. Using AI that has the effect of discriminating on a protected characteristic in hiring, promotion or discharge is a civil rights violation in its own right, and so is using ZIP code as a proxy for a protected characteristic.
ILLINOIS HB 3773 · HUMAN RIGHTS ACT · IN FORCE
AI that discriminates is a civil rights violation in Illinois.
In force since 1 January 2026. No prescribed audit, no published summary and no safe harbour - the duty is yours, and so is the proof.
Artificial intelligence
Effect, not intent
ZIP-code proxy
Employee notice
300-day charge window
Our promise
“A bias audit is an opinion. A record is evidence.”
Every finding is written against a clause of the instrument itself - defensible line by line, to anyone who asks. The fee is fixed at $6,500, and nothing is charged until you approve it.
- Each additional tool
- $1,500
- Re-audit, same scope
- $4,200
- Renewal, every twelve months
- $5,500 locked
This costs more than the estate ladder because it is published: iDharma keeps your summary live for twelve months, with notice and renewal checks.
Request this readiness assessmentThe case file
HB 3773, in three chapters
There is no prescribed audit, no published summary and no filing of any kind. That reads like less work than New York’s Local Law 144 and is usually more: nothing you can buy discharges the duty, and for most employers the first real test of the programme is a charge already filed.
Our review covers the systems you run and the notice around them: an inventory of everything touching an employment decision, outcome evidence by protected class, the ZIP-code and proxy check, and notice written to the statute rather than to a template from elsewhere.
What counts as AI?
Wider than the tools you call AI.
A machine-based system that infers predictions or decisions - generative AI included.
- Employers with employees or applicants in Illinois
- Employment agencies placing into Illinois roles
- Teams whose ATS ranks, scores or filters applicants
- Anyone using AI in promotion, discipline or discharge
- Recruitment, hiring and promotion
- Renewal of employment, tenure and terms
- Selection for training or apprenticeship
- Discipline and discharge
Whose duty is it
The duty is yours. The tool is theirs.
The employer using the tool
The amendment speaks to the employer using the tool to make the employment decision. Reviewing what your systems do, keeping the evidence of it, and telling people when artificial intelligence is used are all yours, and the statute offers you no audit, no summary and nothing at all to point at.
The people who built the tool
Carries no duty of its own under this amendment. Many vendors publish fairness testing, and some of it is genuinely good work that is worth having and worth asking for. It is not a defence, and there is nothing in this statute resembling a reliance test that could ever turn it into one for you.
There is nothing to buy
Illinois prescribes no bias audit, no published summary and no filing - so it also offers no safe harbour. Nothing you can purchase converts into compliance. What the statute asks is what effect your tools had on real applicants and employees, and it asks it only after the fact, when it is too late.
What most teams assume
“We ran a bias audit, so Illinois is covered too.”
What the statute says
No audit to pass. The test is effect, applied after.
It is the assumption we correct most often on Illinois work.
- Who it is for
- Employers hiring in Illinois
- Staffing & recruitment
- In-house talent teams
- Employment counsel
- HR-tech and ATS platforms
Why this matters in 2026
02
Effect, not intent. The provision asks what your tools actually did to people, not what you meant by deploying them in the first place.
03
ZIP code is named. Using it as a proxy for a protected class is its own violation - and it is the proxy most often left inside a model.
04
Nothing falls due. No audit date, no filing and no anniversary - so nothing prompts anybody, and the first prompt you get is the charge.
The 60-second check
Three questions. Then you’ll know.
No email, no signup. A starting point, not a determination.
Opens in a panel. Close it any time - your answers are kept.
Illinois HB 3773
Your scope check
The sequence
Four moments, and only one of them is a date.
Nothing here falls due, which is why nothing prompts anybody - and the first prompt is usually the charge.
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In force
Since 1 January 2026No phase-in and no grace period. Whatever was running on 1 January is the version the statute met.
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Notify
Before it is usedNotice that AI is in use for the decision. The circumstances, the timing and the means are left to Department rules.
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The effect test
Every day it runsThe test is about effect, so every cohort your tools screen re-answers it. No certificate freezes it.
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The charge window
Up to 300 days afterA charge may be filed up to 300 days after the act, so today's screening decision stays live for most of a year.
The trap
Teams plan an audit and a publication date, because that is what New York taught them. Illinois asks for neither. What it asks is that your tools did not have a discriminatory effect - and the only thing that answers it is evidence you kept before anyone asked for it.
Requirement & coverage
What the statute says, what we ship
11 obligations and exposures, and the artefact that answers each. Paired, so every claim here can be checked against the requirement beside it.
- Whose duty it is The employer, never the vendor
- A written determination of who owes the duty for each system, so a vendor's fairness report is never mistaken for your compliance.
- What counts as artificial intelligence Machine-based systems that infer their outputs
- An inventory drawn to the statute's own definition, generative tools included, rather than to what your vendors happen to call AI.
- Which decisions are covered Recruitment to discharge, and the terms in between
- Each system mapped to the decisions it touches - hiring, promotion, renewal, training selection, discipline, discharge, terms and conditions.
- Discrimination by effect Effect, not intent
- Outcome evidence by protected class for the decisions your tools shape, so the question is answered before anyone asks it.
- The protected classes The Human Rights Act's list, not a shorter one
- Testing across the characteristics the Act protects, including the ones a federal-style analysis routinely leaves out.
- ZIP code as a proxy Named in the statute as its own violation
- A proxy review of every feature in use - postcode first, then the correlates quietly standing in for it.
- Notice that AI is used Required for the covered decisions
- Notice language written to the statute, for applicants and for existing employees, in the places each of them actually reads.
- The form of that notice To be set by rules from the Department of Human Rights
- A notice practice built to survive those rules when they land, and a note of exactly what would change if they land differently.
- Human review Not prescribed - and still your best evidence
- A record of where a person can and does override the system, what they see when they do, and how often it changes the outcome.
- Records No filing, so nothing is created for you
- The evidence pack a charge would ask for - inventory, testing, notice copies and dates - held where you can actually produce it.
- Adjacent Illinois duties Video interviews, biometrics
- Where an AI video interview or biometric analysis sits in the stack, the review names the separate Illinois obligations it triggers.
The engagement
Employment AI, independently reviewed
From CV screening to conversational agents.
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Intake
Which systems touch an employment decision, and the data each one is fed.
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Review
Effect by protected class, the proxy check, and the notice as it is actually given.
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Sign off and hand over
You see the draft first. Then the report, the notice pack and the evidence file - dated.
Struck in your favour
Why employers choose iDharma for their HB 3773 review
Genuinely independent
We build, resell and operate no hiring tools, and we take no fee tied to what the review finds.
Written to the statute
Every finding maps to the provision it answers, so counsel can check it against the Act itself.
One engagement, end to end
Inventory, effect, proxies and notice sit in one scope, so nothing falls between two vendors.
Evidence, not assurance
You get the record a charge would ask for, not a certificate this statute does not recognise.
Four marks, struck on every report.
Deliverables
What you get
Concrete artefacts, each with a name and a format - you know what lands before you buy.
Readiness review report
The full review in one document: every system in scope, the outcomes by protected class for each decision your tools shape, the ZIP-code and correlate proxy check, the notice practice measured against the statute, and the gaps ranked by consequence - written in plain language and signed by an independent reviewer.
AI decision inventory
Every system touching recruitment, hiring, promotion, discipline or discharge, written to the statute's definition rather than a vendor's.
Effect testing tables
The outcome tables by protected class in a workbook, so your own analysts can reproduce every figure in the report without asking us for it.
Proxy review
Where ZIP code, or something standing in for it, is doing work inside a model - named feature by feature, with what each one correlates to.
Notice pack
Notice language for applicants and for employees, written to the statute and ready to move the day the Department's rules are published.
Scope memo
Which systems were in scope, which were not, and why each call was made - the written record that stands behind your inventory.
Evidence file
Inventory, testing, notice copies and dates, assembled the way a charge asks for them - because nothing here is filed anywhere for you.
Format & scope
No filing, no certificate, and no hiding place.
- Scope
- Set by the statute, not by us
- Data
- Your own applicant outcomes
- Re-review
- Every 12 months or on a material model change
The statute fixed the scope, so the review is fixed to it - nothing to meter, and nothing charged until you approve.
Request this review
HB 3773 · The charge window
300 days
- From the act complained of, to filing
- Independent readiness review report
- Outcomes by protected class
- ZIP-code and proxy findings
- Notice language for applicants and staff
Show your hand
Four things you have to be able to produce
The statute prescribes none of them. Each is either in your hand on the day a charge arrives, or it is not.
The systems,
listed
Every system that touches an employment decision, listed. You cannot show a tool had no discriminatory effect if you cannot say which tools were running.
The notice,
given
That applicants and employees were told artificial intelligence was in use for these decisions - to whom, when, and in what words. Notice is a duty of its own.
The effect,
shown
What actually happened to people, by protected characteristic, for every decision your tools shaped. This is the limb the statute is really about, and it is the hard one.
The proxy,
checked
That ZIP code, and the features quietly standing in for it, are not doing the work the statute forbids. Shown on your own data, not asserted in a policy document.
Four cards, and the date on each one is part of the card.
FAQ
Plain answers
What counts as AI, the notice, and penalties. Answered straight.
Request this reviewWe already run a bias audit. Are we covered?
There is nothing here to be covered by. Illinois prescribes no audit and offers no safe harbour - the test is the effect your tools had, applied after the fact. A good audit is useful evidence; it is not a defence.
What counts as AI under HB 3773?
A machine-based system that infers from its input how to generate predictions, content, recommendations or decisions - generative systems expressly included. That is wider than the tools you call AI.
How long does a readiness review take?
Typically two to four weeks from data hand-over for a single system, longer where the inventory turns out to be bigger than expected - which it usually does. Scope is agreed with you before anything is charged.
What exactly has to be in the notice?
The statute requires notice that artificial intelligence is being used for these decisions, and leaves the circumstances, the timing and the means to rules from the Department of Human Rights. Until those are final, we write to the statute and keep the language movable.
What happens if we get it wrong?
A charge with the Department of Human Rights, filed up to 300 days after the act complained of, and then the Human Rights Commission or the circuit court. Remedies run to actual damages, back pay, reinstatement and the complainant's legal costs.
Get started
Request your readiness review
Tell us which systems you use and we come back with a scoping call within one business day.
What we need from you
Nothing you do not already have. Most of this comes out of your ATS and your HR system in an afternoon, and we tell you exactly which extracts before you commit.
- Which systems are used, and at which stage
- Whether any roles or employees are located in Illinois
- Applicant and employee outcomes, with demographic fields
- Whatever notice is given today, and where it appears
- Whether a charge, a grievance or an audit prompted this
What happens next
- You send the five items we need.
- We book a scoping call within one business day.
- Nothing is charged until you approve the scope.
Sources & standing
Where this page gets its facts
Where the claims on this page come from, and what they are worth - stated, not assumed.
What it is drawn from
- Illinois Human Rights Act, 775 ILCS 5/
- House Bill 3773 (Public Act 103-0804)
- Dept of Human Rights rules, to be adopted
- Effective
- 1 January 2026
- Charge window
- 300 days
What it means
- General information about what the statute requires - not legal advice, and no professional relationship.
- The notice rules are not yet settled. Where a question is genuinely open, our reports say so rather than pick the convenient answer.
Scope & limitation
- Do not rest a binding decision on it; engage qualified counsel.
- Use it as a starting point for a scoping conversation, not as your final word.
Something on this page out of date?
Tell usFrom Insights
Before you commission one
How to Prepare for an AI Audit: The Readiness Checklist
Six things to have ready before the engagement starts. Assembling them takes a fortnight off the clock — and tends to find the first two findings before an auditor does.
Read the notes
METHODOLOGY NOTES
What Is an AI Audit? Scope, Standards, and What You Get
An independent review of what your AI actually does, measured against a named standard — not a certificate, and not a review of what the documentation says it does.
STANDARDS EXPLAINED
What an AI Governance Framework Actually Contains
Five working parts, not a policy document. What each one has to do, how to tell whether yours is real, and why a framework is not the same thing as compliance.
STANDARDS EXPLAINED
Who Can Run a Local Law 144 Bias Audit, and What It Has to Measure
The law asks for an independent bias audit of the tool you hire with. Two words there do the work — independent, and audit — and a vendor certificate satisfies neither.
