Illinois was regulating AI in hiring before most states had drafted a bill. The Artificial Intelligence Video Interview Act, codified at 820 ILCS 42, has been in force since January 1, 2020, and it governs a narrow but common practice: using artificial intelligence to analyze a recorded video interview and score the candidate in it.

The Act is procedural rather than substantive. It does not ban AI screening, set a fairness standard, or require testing. It requires that candidates know an algorithm is evaluating them, understand what it evaluates, agree to it in writing before recording, and be able to have the recording destroyed. Employers who rely solely on that analysis to decide who advances also owe the state an annual demographic report. This guide covers each duty, the sections they come from, and the parts of the Act employers most often get wrong.

Key Takeaways

  • Consent is a precondition, not a formality. Without written consent obtained before recording, an employer may not use AI to evaluate that applicant at all.
  • The deletion duty reaches your backups and your vendors. A destruction request runs to every copy, including electronically generated backups held by third parties, within 30 days.
  • The Act carries no bias-audit mandate and no stated penalty. Real exposure in Illinois comes from other statutes, which is why the scope question matters more than the checklist.

What the Illinois AI Video Interview Act Covers

The Act applies to an employer that asks applicants to record a video interview for a position based in Illinois and then uses artificial intelligence to analyze that recording. Location of the position controls, not the location of the employer, so an out-of-state company hiring for an Illinois role is covered.

The trigger is the analysis, not the recording. A video interview that a human reviews and scores falls outside the Act entirely, no notice or consent required. The duties attach when software evaluates the file: parsing word choice, scoring vocal characteristics, reading facial movement, or otherwise assessing the candidate's fitness for the position from the recording itself.

That distinction is worth testing honestly against your stack. Employers sometimes assume that because a recruiter makes the final call, no AI analysis occurred. The question the statute asks is whether artificial intelligence analyzed the video and contributed to the evaluation, not who signed off at the end.

The Three Pre-Interview Duties Under Section 5

Section 5 sets out three obligations, all of which must be satisfied before the applicant records. The statutory text is short, and the sequence is the point: an employer that completes these steps after the recording has not complied.

  1. Notify the applicant. Tell the applicant, before the interview, that artificial intelligence may be used to analyze the video and consider their fitness for the position.
  2. Explain how the technology works. Provide information explaining how the AI works and what general types of characteristics it uses to evaluate applicants. The statute asks for general characteristics, not source code or proprietary methodology, but a one-line reference to "AI-assisted review" does not meet the standard.
  3. Obtain written consent. Secure the applicant's written consent to be evaluated by the AI before the interview takes place.

Because the explanation must describe what the tool actually assesses, it has to come from the vendor and be kept current. A generic template drafted once and reused across three successive tools will drift out of accuracy quietly. Build the explanation from vendor documentation, and refresh it whenever the vendor changes the model or the traits it scores.

If an applicant declines

An employer may not evaluate an applicant who has not consented. The Act stops there: it does not require the employer to provide an alternative, human-reviewed path, and it does not address what happens to a non-consenting candidate's application.

That silence is a policy decision handed back to the employer, and it is worth making deliberately rather than case by case. Deciding in advance whether declining candidates move to human review or exit the process gives recruiters a consistent answer and gives you a defensible record of how the choice was applied.

Handling the Video After the Interview

Section 10: who may receive the recording

An employer may share an applicant's video only with persons whose expertise or technology is necessary to evaluate the applicant's fitness for the position. That is a functional test, not an organizational one. Circulating a recording to colleagues who are curious, to a hiring manager for an unrelated req, or to a vendor whose tooling is not part of the evaluation falls outside what the section permits.

In practice this means naming who is on the access list for each role and keeping the list short enough to defend.

Section 15: the 30-day destruction duty

On an applicant's request, an employer must delete the video within 30 days. The obligation extends beyond the employer's own copy: the employer must also instruct every other person who received the video to delete it, including all electronically generated backup copies.

That last clause is where most programs fail. Snapshots, disaster-recovery images, vendor-side archives, and integration caches are all in scope, and none of them appear in a typical HR workflow diagram. Before a request arrives, map where a recording actually lands after upload, confirm each holder can delete on instruction inside the window, and get written confirmation back rather than assuming it happened.

What this asks of your systems

The duty is only as good as the infrastructure behind it. Employers should be able to locate every copy of a given applicant's recording, restrict access to the evaluation list, execute deletion across systems and vendors, and produce a record showing what was deleted and when. Continuous evidence of that kind is easier to maintain when it is generated automatically rather than reconstructed after the fact, which is the argument for a versioned audit trail covering AI-assisted hiring steps.

Section 20: Annual Demographic Reporting to the State

The Act's least-discussed obligation is also the one with a fixed deadline. An employer that relies solely upon an artificial intelligence analysis of a video interview to determine whether an applicant will be selected for an in-person interview must collect and report demographic data to the state.

What is required, per Section 20:

  • The race and ethnicity of applicants who were afforded an in-person interview after the AI analysis, and of those who were not.
  • The race and ethnicity of applicants who were hired.
  • Reported annually to the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity by December 31, covering the twelve-month period ending November 30.

The Department analyzes the submissions for evidence of racial bias and reports its findings to the Governor and the General Assembly by July 1 each year.

Two practical notes. First, the trigger is the word "solely," so an employer whose AI analysis is one input among several, with genuine human evaluation alongside it, sits outside the reporting duty. Establish which side of that line each workflow falls on and record the reasoning. Second, an employer that is inside the duty needs demographic data collected at the right stage of the funnel, which is a data-capture question to solve well before December.

What the Act Does Not Require

Knowing the boundaries of this statute is as useful as knowing its duties, because several obligations employers assume are here are not.

  • No bias audit. The Act does not require testing the tool for disparate impact, and it does not require an independent auditor. Illinois has no bias-audit mandate comparable to NYC Local Law 144.
  • No public reporting. Nothing must be posted to your website. The Section 20 demographic report goes to a state agency, not to the public.
  • No alternative process. Employers are not required to offer non-consenting applicants a human-reviewed route.
  • No retention period. The Act sets no minimum or maximum storage term. It creates a deletion duty on request, not a retention schedule.
  • No coverage of other hiring tools. Resume parsers, assessment scoring, chatbots, and ranking engines fall outside this Act unless they are analyzing a recorded video interview.

Separately, Illinois amended the Human Rights Act to address discriminatory outcomes from predictive data analytics across the employment lifecycle. That is a different statute with a different trigger and different duties, covered in our guide to Illinois HB 3773.

Where the Real Exposure Sits

The Act itself is unusual in what it omits: it states no civil penalty and creates no express private right of action. Compliance still matters, but it is worth being precise about why, because a vague warning about fines misdirects the analysis.

The sharper risk in Illinois is the Biometric Information Privacy Act, 740 ILCS 14. Where a video interview tool analyzes facial geometry or voiceprints, it may be processing biometric identifiers, and BIPA carries its own written-notice and written-release requirements plus a private right of action and statutory damages per violation. An employer can satisfy every duty in 820 ILCS 42 and still have a BIPA problem, so ask vendors directly what the tool measures and route the answer to counsel.

Beyond that, the consent record and deletion evidence you build under this Act are the same records that answer a discrimination claim, a client's due-diligence questionnaire, or a candidate complaint. Documentation created for one purpose tends to be the documentation that saves you in another. Independent AI bias auditing is not required by this statute, but it is what turns a vendor's assurance about a scoring tool into evidence you can produce.

A Compliance Checklist for Illinois Hiring Teams

  • Inventory the trigger. List every role recruited into Illinois that uses a recorded video interview, and identify which of those recordings are analyzed by software rather than only by people.
  • Build the explanation from vendor documentation. Capture the general characteristics the tool evaluates, in plain language, and date the version.
  • Put notice and consent before the recording link. Sequence matters; consent collected on the confirmation screen after upload is too late.
  • Name the access list. Define who may receive a recording for each role, and confirm no default sharing exists in the platform.
  • Map every copy. Trace the recording to all storage locations, including vendor archives and backups, and confirm each can be purged within 30 days on instruction.
  • Decide the non-consent policy. Document whether declining applicants move to human review or exit, and apply it consistently.
  • Test the Section 20 trigger. Determine whether any workflow relies solely on AI analysis to gate in-person interviews, and if so, stand up demographic capture and the December 31 filing.
  • Ask the biometric question. Confirm with each vendor whether the tool derives facial geometry or voiceprints, and escalate to counsel where it does.

Related Articles

Ready to Prove Your Illinois Hiring Tools Do What You Say?

Meeting this Act takes more than adding a consent checkbox, but discovering a gap when an applicant requests deletion or a candidate challenges a rejection is a severe risk. A missing consent record, an undeleted vendor backup, or an unanswered question about what a tool measures can turn a routine hire into a legal problem. Building the workflow now, with sequenced notice and consent, a mapped deletion path, and documented answers from every vendor, keeps your Illinois pipeline defensible and gives recruiters one consistent process to follow. Warden AI's independent AI bias audits and continuous assurance turn what a vendor claims about its scoring tool into evidence you can produce. Talk to a Warden AI specialist about building defensible AI hiring workflows in Illinois.

Illinois AI Video Interview Act: Frequently Asked Questions

Yes, if the position is located in Illinois. The Act keys to where the job is, not where the company is headquartered, so an out-of-state employer recruiting for an Illinois role carries the same notice, consent, sharing, and deletion duties.

Within 30 days of the applicant's request. The duty covers the employer's copy and every copy held by anyone else who received it, including electronically generated backups, so the employer must also instruct those parties to delete.

No. Written consent obtained before the interview is a precondition to AI evaluation. The Act does not require the employer to offer an alternative human-reviewed process, so employers should set that policy themselves and apply it consistently.

No. There is no bias-audit requirement, no independent-auditor requirement, and no public posting duty under this statute. Testing remains the strongest evidence an employer can hold if a hiring outcome is ever challenged under other law, but it is not mandated here.

An employer that relies solely on AI analysis of the video interview to decide whether an applicant advances to an in-person interview. That employer reports the race and ethnicity of applicants afforded and not afforded in-person interviews, and of those hired, to the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity by December 31 for the twelve months ending November 30.

They are separate statutes. This Act governs notice, consent, sharing, and deletion when AI analyzes a recorded video interview. HB 3773 amends the Illinois Human Rights Act and addresses discriminatory outcomes from predictive data analytics across employment decisions generally. An employer using video AI in Illinois may owe duties under both.