Web design for New York.
And the one feature we will not quietly build you.

New York has no e-invoicing regime to engineer for and no national accessibility statute of the Ontario kind. What it does have is the strictest rule in the English-speaking world on a feature clients ask us for constantly without knowing its name: anything that helps rank, score or screen job candidates. In New York City that is an automated employment decision tool, and it carries obligations that land on you, the employer, before you are allowed to use it.

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Local Law 144, and why it is in a web design quote

Read from the NYC Department of Consumer and Worker Protection’s own FAQ on 2 November 2026. We put this first because it is the request most likely to arrive as a two-line afterthought in a brief.

The threshold is lower than clients expect

An AEDT is a computer-based tool that uses machine learning, statistical modelling, data analytics or artificial intelligence, helps make employment decisions, and substantially assists or replaces discretionary decision-making. A scoring rule you consider simple can qualify. "We just sort applicants by a score" is the sentence that most often means yes.

Screening counts, not just the final decision

DCWP is explicit that employment decision is defined broadly to include screening. If a tool helps assess or screen candidates at any point in hiring or promotion, the obligations apply before you use it. Scanning a resume bank or inviting applications is outside it; assessing an actual applicant is not.

A bias audit comes first, and expires

An impartial evaluation by an independent auditor must be completed before use, and may be relied on for one year from the date it was conducted. It must calculate selection or scoring rates and impact ratios across sex, race and ethnicity, and intersectional categories. It must use historical data from actual use of the tool, with narrow exceptions for test data.

You publish the results, and you notify candidates

A summary of the most recent audit and the distribution date go on the employment section of your website or behind an active link: the audit date, the source and explanation of the data, the number of people in an unknown category, and the counts, rates and impact ratios. Candidates who are New York City residents must be given notice. The law took effect on 1 January 2023 and DCWP enforcement began on 5 July 2023.

Sources, checked 2 November 2026

NYC Department of Consumer and Worker Protection, Automated Employment Decision Tools FAQ: under Local Law 144 of 2021, in effect 1 January 2023 and enforced from 5 July 2023, an AEDT used in the city needs an impartial bias audit by an independent auditor completed before use and no more than a year old, a published summary of results with the distribution date, and notice to candidates who are New York City residents

What that means for a build, in practice

It does not mean you cannot have the feature. It means the compliance work is part of the project rather than a surprise after launch.

We flag it in the quote, not after If something in your brief reads like an AEDT, it goes in writing before you sign, with the obligations named. Discovering this after launch is how a useful feature becomes one you dare not switch on.
The tool is built to be auditable If an independent auditor needs selection and scoring rates and impact ratios across categories, the system has to record enough to produce them. That is a data-model decision made at the start. Retrofitting auditability into a live scoring system is painful and sometimes impossible.
A manual path exists alongside it Because the audit expires annually, you need the tool to be switchable off without stopping hiring. We design for that rather than making the scoring load-bearing.
The audit and the law are not ours to supply We are not an independent auditor and we are not your employment counsel. The audit must be impartial, which rules us out for anything we build. We will tell you what the system can produce and what it cannot, and you take that to the people who do that work.

When we are the wrong firm for this

The United States is the market on this site where we have the least to offer and the most competition. A five-hour time difference gives us a working overlap, so the Sydney problem does not apply, but New York has the deepest supply of development studios anywhere and buying local is a reasonable default. We are also not US counsel, cannot advise on state or federal employment law, and will not be the ones signing off whether your tool is lawful.

Where we are worth a call is when you already know what you need built, the specification is settled, and UK rates for the engineering are the point. Ask us for strategy, compliance sign-off or anything needing a lawyer in the room and we are the wrong firm.

Questions

Before you ask.

We want a feature that scores job applicants. Can you build it?

Yes, and we will tell you in the quote that it is likely an automated employment decision tool under Local Law 144. That means a bias audit by an independent auditor completed before use and renewed annually, a published summary with the distribution date, and notice to candidates who are New York City residents. We build it to be auditable and switchable off; the audit and the legal sign-off are not ours to supply.

Does a simple scoring rule really count?

It can. DCWP defines an AEDT as a tool using machine learning, statistical modelling, data analytics or artificial intelligence that helps make employment decisions and substantially assists or replaces discretionary decision-making — and it defines employment decision broadly enough to include screening. The question is whether it substantially assists the decision, not whether the maths is sophisticated. Take the specific tool to counsel.

Does it apply if the job is remote?

DCWP says the law applies to use in the city, which includes a fully remote job whose associated location is an office in New York City, as well as a job located at an NYC office at least part time, and an employment agency situated in NYC. Remote hiring does not take you outside it.

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Web design for New York.And the one feature we will not quietly build you.