The American Civil Liberties Union filed a complaint with the US Federal Trade Commission against Aon over hiring assessments.
It claims products by Aon are marketed as “bias free” and able to “improve diversity” even though they may unfairly screen out workers. Two products mentioned in the complaint are its Adept-15 personality assessment test and vidAssess-AI automated video assessment tool.
“Aon falsely claims that its assessments are bias free, and yet its assessments carry an unacceptably high risk of screening people out based on who they are and not whether they can do the job, particularly on the basis of race or disabilities such as autism or mental health disabilities,” Olga Akselrod, senior staff attorney at the ACLU’s Racial Justice Program, said in a press release.
A spokesperson for Aon responded to the ACLU’s allegations in a statement to SIA.
“We are committed to building solutions that enable our clients to make inclusive hiring decisions,” the spokesperson said. “The design and implementation of our assessment solutions — which clients use in addition to other screenings and reviews — follow industry best practices as well as EEOC, legal and professional guidelines. We are monitoring new and proposed laws and regulatory guidance to ensure that our solutions remains in compliance.”
The ACLU said Aon’s tools, similar to others on the market, assess general personality traits such as positivity, emotional awareness and liveliness. It said such traits are not clearly job related or necessary for most jobs. However, it argued their use risk unfairly screening out qualified workers with conditions such as autism, depression or anxiety. The ACLU also argued the tools are likely to discriminate based on race and other protected characteristics.
Another product marketed by Aon called gridChallenge, which is described as a cognitive ability assessment, was also challenged by the ACLU. It said there is data showing racial disparities in performance on these types of tests.
The ACLU noted it had also filed a class actions charges with the EEOC in late 2023 against Aon and an employer that uses Aon’s assessments. The complaint alleged discrimination based on race and disability on behalf of a biracial autistic job applicant and other similarly situated applicants.