Association of RecTech Providers launches standard for ethical AI in recruitment

The Association of RecTech Providers (ARTP) has launched what it described as the UK’s first national recruitment technology standard, with a focus on the ethical use of artificial intelligence (AI), inclusion and data security.

The RecTech Standard, launched in Parliament, is intended to provide employers with a framework for assessing recruitment technology as the use of AI in hiring increases.

It supports the use of AI to enhance recruitment processes while retaining human accountability for hiring decisions, as well as setting expectations around the protection of candidate data.

ARTP, part of the Better Hiring Institute, represents providers of recruitment technology handling more than 200 million job applications a year.

Christopher Platts, chair of ARTP, said: “Recruitment technology increasingly determines who gets seen, shortlisted and hired.

“But as AI makes it faster and easier to build tools that look credible, it also makes it harder for employers to know what sits behind the claims. That’s the problem the Better RecTech Provider standard is designed to solve.

“It gives employers something more meaningful to judge suppliers against than a polished demo or a promise that a system is ‘fair’.

“Providers are asked to show the evidence behind how their technology works, with expectations scaled to the level of risk, and with people remaining accountable for the decisions technology helps inform. The aim isn’t to slow innovation down. It’s to make good innovation easier to recognise.”