[Congressional Bills 119th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 6356 Introduced in House (IH)]
<DOC>
119th CONGRESS
1st Session
H. R. 6356
To establish protections for individual rights with respect to
computational algorithms, and for other purposes.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
December 2, 2025
Ms. Clarke of New York (for herself, Ms. Lee of Pennsylvania, Ms.
Pressley, Ms. Jayapal, Mr. Bell, Mr. Carson, Ms. Chu, Mr. Davis of
Illinois, Mr. Deluzio, Mr. Jackson of Illinois, Ms. Kelly of Illinois,
Mr. McGovern, Ms. Norton, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, Mr. Pocan, Mrs. Ramirez,
Mr. Thompson of Mississippi, Ms. Tlaib, Mrs. Watson Coleman, Ms. Wilson
of Florida, Mr. Garcia of Illinois, and Mrs. Foushee) introduced the
following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Energy and
Commerce, and in addition to the Committee on Oversight and Government
Reform, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in
each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the
jurisdiction of the committee concerned
_______________________________________________________________________
A BILL
To establish protections for individual rights with respect to
computational algorithms, and for other purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the
United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE; TABLE OF CONTENTS.
(a) Short Title.--This Act may be cited as the ``Artificial
Intelligence Civil Rights Act of 2025''.
(b) Table of Contents.--The table of contents for this Act is as
follows:
Sec. 1. Short title; table of contents.
Sec. 2. Definitions.
TITLE I--CIVIL RIGHTS
Sec. 101. Discrimination.
Sec. 102. Pre-deployment evaluations and post-deployment impact
assessments.
TITLE II--COVERED ALGORITHM AND CONTRACT STANDARDS
Sec. 201. Covered algorithm standards.
Sec. 202. Relationships between developers and deployers.
Sec. 203. Human alternatives and other protections.
Sec. 204. Prohibition on retaliation; whistleblower protections.
TITLE III--TRANSPARENCY
Sec. 301. Notice and disclosure.
Sec. 302. Study on explanations regarding the use of covered
algorithms.
Sec. 303. Consumer awareness.
TITLE IV--ENFORCEMENT
Sec. 401. Enforcement by the Commission.
Sec. 402. Enforcement by States.
Sec. 403. Private right of action.
Sec. 404. Severability.
Sec. 405. Rules of construction.
TITLE V--FEDERAL RESOURCES
Sec. 501. Occupational series relating to algorithm auditing.
Sec. 502. Additional Federal resources.
SEC. 2. DEFINITIONS.
In this Act:
(1) Collect; collection.--The terms ``collect'' and
``collection'', with respect to personal data, mean buying,
renting, gathering, obtaining, receiving, accessing, or
otherwise acquiring such data by any means.
(2) Commercial act.--The term ``commercial act'', with
respect to a covered algorithm, means an act conducted for
monetary or other valuable consideration, including conducting
an activity in furtherance of obtaining such consideration.
(3) Commission.--The term ``Commission'' means the Federal
Trade Commission.
(4) Consequential action.--The term ``consequential
action'' means an act that is likely to have a material effect
on, or to materially contribute to, access to, security and
authentication relating to, eligibility for, cost of, terms of,
or conditions related to any of the following:
(A) Employment, including hiring, pay, independent
contracting, worker management, promotion, and
termination.
(B) Education and career and technical education,
including assessment, proctoring, promotion of academic
integrity, accreditation, certification, admissions,
enrollment, disciplinary actions including suspension,
expulsion, or referral to law enforcement, eligibility
for graduation, grade promotion or degree conferral,
academic performance evaluation, and provision of
financial aid and scholarships.
(C) Housing and lodging, including rental and
short-term housing and lodging, home appraisals, rental
subsidies, publicly supported housing, and mortgage
lending.
(D) Essential utilities, including electricity,
heat, water, municipal trash or sewage services,
internet and telecommunications service, and public
transportation.
(E) Health care, including mental health care, and
dental, vision, and adoption services, and other health
care-related services, treatment options, trials, and
studies.
(F) Credit, banking, and other financial services.
(G) Insurance, including insurance claim
determinations.
(H) Actions of the criminal justice system, law
enforcement or intelligence operations, immigration
determinations or enforcement, border control (vetting,
screening, and inspection), child protective services,
child welfare, and family services, including risk and
threat assessments, situational awareness and threat
detection, investigations, watchlisting, bail
determinations, sentencing, administration of parole,
surveillance, use of unmanned vehicles and machines,
and predictive policing.
(I) Justice and determinations concerning guilt or
liability, including assignment of cases or counsel,
bail determinations, pre-detention risk assessments,
case intake, sequencing, and processing, awards of
actual or punitive damages, and binding and nonbinding
determinations in arbitration, mediation, or other
alternative dispute resolution.
(J) Elections, including voting, requirements for
documentation or proof of identity to vote or register
to vote (and determinations about whether an individual
meets those requirements), redistricting, polling place
resources, reduction or alteration of multilingual or
English language voting materials, alteration of the
manner in which voting materials are provided or
distributed, reduction, consolidation, or relocation of
voting locations in elections for Federal, State, or
local office (including early, absentee, and election-
day voting locations), reduction in days or hours of
in-person voting during a period occurring prior to the
date of an election for Federal, State, or local office
during which voters may cast ballots in such election,
election security, and election administration,
including maintenance processes for voter registration
lists that add a new basis for removal from the list of
active voters registered to vote in elections for
Federal, State, or local office, or that incorporate a
new source of information in determining a voter's
eligibility to vote in elections for Federal, State, or
local office.
(K) Government benefits and services, as well as
verification of identity, citizenship, and immigration
status, fraud prevention, and assignment of penalties.
(L) A public accommodation.
(M) Any other service, program, product, or
opportunity which has a comparable legal, material, or
similarly significant effect on an individual's life as
determined by the Commission through rules promulgated
pursuant to section 553 of title 5, United States Code.
(5) Covered algorithm.--The term ``covered algorithm''
means--
(A) a computational process derived from machine
learning, natural language processing, artificial
intelligence techniques, or other computational
processing techniques of similar or greater complexity,
that, with respect to a consequential action--
(i) creates or facilitates the creation of
a product or information that is used as an
integral part of the consequential action;
(ii) promotes, recommends, ranks, or
otherwise affects the display or delivery of
information that is used as an integral part of
the consequential action;
(iii) makes a decision; or
(iv) facilitates human decision making; or
(B) any other computational process deemed
appropriate by the Commission through rules promulgated
pursuant to section 553 of title 5, United States Code.
(6) Covered language.--The term ``covered language'' means
the 10 languages with the most speakers in the United States,
according to the most recent data collected by the United
States Census Bureau.
(7) De-identified data.--The term ``de-identified data''
means information--
(A) that does not identify and is not linked or
reasonably linkable to an individual or a device,
regardless of whether the information is aggregated;
and
(B) with respect to which any developer or deployer
using such information--
(i) takes reasonable technical measures to
ensure that the information cannot, at any
point, be used to re-identify any individual or
device that identifies or is linked or
reasonably linkable to an individual;
(ii) publicly commits in a clear and
conspicuous manner--
(I) to process and transfer the
information solely in a de-identified
form without any reasonable means for
re-identification; and
(II) to not attempt to re-identify
the information with any individual or
device that identifies or is linked or
reasonably linkable to an individual;
and
(iii) contractually obligates any person
that receives the information from the
developer or deployer--
(I) to comply with all of the
provisions of this paragraph with
respect to such information; and
(II) to require that such
contractual obligations be included in
all subsequent instances for which the
information may be received.
(8) Deployer.--
(A) In general.--The term ``deployer'' means any
person that uses a covered algorithm for a commercial
act.
(B) Rule of construction.--The terms ``deployer''
and ``developer'' shall not be interpreted to be
mutually exclusive.
(9) Developer.--
(A) In general.--The term ``developer'' means any
person that designs, codes, customizes, produces, or
substantially modifies an algorithm that is intended or
reasonably likely to be used as a covered algorithm--
(i) for such person's own use, or use by a
third party, in connection with a commercial
act; or
(ii) for use by a government entity.
(B) Assumption of developer responsibilities.--In
the event that a deployer uses an algorithm as a
covered algorithm, and no person is considered the
developer of the algorithm for purposes of subparagraph
(A), the deployer shall be considered the developer of
the covered algorithm for the purposes of this Act.
(C) Rule of construction.--The terms ``developer''
and ``deployer'' shall not be interpreted to be
mutually exclusive.
(10) Disparate impact.--
(A) In general.--The term ``disparate impact''
means an unjustified differential effect on an
individual or group of individuals on the basis of an
actual or perceived protected characteristic.
(B) Unjustified differential effect.--For purposes
of subparagraph (A), with respect to the action,
policy, or practice of a developer or deployer, a
differential effect is unjustified if--
(i) the developer or deployer fails to
demonstrate that such action, policy, or
practice causing the differential effect is
necessary to achieve a substantial, legitimate,
and nondiscriminatory interest; or
(ii) in the event the developer or deployer
demonstrates such interest, an alternative
action, policy, or practice could serve such
interest with less differential effect.
(C) Application to covered algorithms.--With
respect to demonstrating that a covered algorithm
causes or contributes to a differential effect, the
covered algorithm is presumed to be not separable for
analysis and may be analyzed holistically as a single
action, policy, or practice, unless the developer or
deployer proves that the covered algorithm is separable
by a preponderance of the evidence.
(11) Harm.--The term ``harm'', with respect to a
consequential action, means a non-de minimis adverse effect on
an individual or group of individuals--
(A) on the basis of a protected characteristic;
(B) that involves the use of force, coercion,
harassment, intimidation, or detention; or
(C) that involves the infringement of a right
protected under the Constitution of the United States.
(12) Independent auditor.--
(A) In general.--The term ``independent auditor''
means an individual that conducts a pre-deployment
evaluation or impact assessment of a covered algorithm
in a manner that exercises objective and impartial
judgment on all issues within the scope of such
evaluation or assessment.
(B) Exclusion.--An individual is not an independent
auditor of a covered algorithm if such individual--
(i) is or was involved in using,
developing, offering, licensing, or deploying
the covered algorithm for a commercial act;
(ii) at any point during the pre-deployment
evaluation or impact assessment, has an
employment relationship (including a contractor
relationship, but not including a contractor
relationship for the auditing service described
in subparagraph (A)) with a developer or
deployer that uses, offers, or licenses the
covered algorithm; or
(iii) at any point during the pre-
deployment evaluation or impact assessment, has
a direct financial interest, a reasonably
foreseeable future financial interest, or a
material indirect financial interest in a
developer or deployer that uses, offers, or
licenses a covered algorithm, not including
routine payment for the auditing services
described in subparagraph (A).
(13) Individual.--The term ``individual'' means a natural
person in the United States.
(14) Personal data.--
(A) In general.--The term ``personal data''--
(i) means information that identifies or is
linked or reasonably linkable, alone or in
combination with other information, to an
individual or an individual's device; and
(ii) shall include derived data and unique
persistent identifiers.
(B) Exclusion.--The term ``personal data'' does not
include de-identified data.
(15) Process.--The term ``process'', with respect to
personal data, means to conduct or direct any operation or set
of operations performed on such data, including analyzing,
organizing, structuring, retaining, storing, using, or
otherwise handling such data.
(16) Protected characteristic.--The term ``protected
characteristic'' means any of the following actual or perceived
traits of an individual or group of individuals:
(A) Race.
(B) Color.
(C) Ethnicity.
(D) National origin, nationality, or immigration
status.
(E) Religion.
(F) Sex (including a sex stereotype, pregnancy,
childbirth, or a related medical condition, sexual
orientation or gender identity, and sex
characteristics, including intersex traits).
(G) Disability.
(H) Limited English proficiency.
(I) Biometric information.
(J) Familial or marital status.
(K) Source of income.