California Governor Gavin Newsom approved Senate Bill 947 on 30 September 2026, and the bill was filed with the Secretary of State the same day as Chapter 859 of the 2026 statutes. The measure is enacted law. Section 1526.7 of the Labor Code sets the operative date at 1 July 2027, so employers have until that date to bring practices into line.
Senate Bill 947 adds Part 5.5.5, commencing with Section 1520, to Division 2 of the Labor Code. Section 1522(b)(1) states that an employer shall not rely solely on an automated decision system when making a disciplinary or termination decision. Section 1522(a) bars an employer from using an automated decision system to prevent compliance with or violate federal, state or local labor, occupational health and safety, employment or civil rights law, to infer an employee's protected status under Section 12940 of the Government Code, or to predict and take adverse action against a worker for exercising legal rights. Section 1524(a) requires an employer that primarily relied on an automated decision system for a disciplinary or termination decision to give the affected employee a written post-use notice at the time the decision is communicated, in plain language, as a stand-alone communication, in the language used for routine employee communications. Section 1520 defines an automated decision system as a computational process derived from machine learning, statistical modeling, data analytics or artificial intelligence that issues simplified output used to assist or replace human discretionary decisionmaking.
California employers running workforce analytics, productivity scoring, scheduling and attendance tools will need a documented human decision step before discipline or dismissal, and a record of what that human reviewed. Human resources information system vendors and performance management software providers selling into California face buyers who must produce a description of an employee's own data on request. Employment counsel defending a dismissal will find the post-use notice and the employee's data description among the first documents in dispute.
Section 1526 bars an employer from discharging, threatening to discharge, demoting, suspending, or otherwise discriminating or retaliating against an employee for using rights under the Part, filing a complaint with the Labor Commissioner, alleging a violation, or cooperating in an investigation. Section 1526.1(a) gives the Labor Commissioner authority to enforce the Part, including investigating an alleged violation and ordering appropriate temporary relief. The Act separates reliance that is sole from reliance that is primary, attaching the outright prohibition to the first and the notice and data access duties to the second, and leaves the boundary between the two to enforcement and litigation.
Licentium advises employers, software vendors and investors on artificial intelligence regulation in the United States, the United Kingdom and the European Union. Work we undertake includes auditing automated decision tools against state employment statutes, drafting human review and post-use notice procedures, and allocating compliance risk in human resources technology contracts.
Source: California Senate Bill 947, Chapter 859 (2026), California Legislative Information