California's Privacy Protection Agency Says That Under Its Rules on Automated Decisionmaking Technology, Human Involvement Requires a Reviewer Who Knows How to Interpret and Use the Output, Reviews and Analyzes It, and Has the Authority to Make or Change the Decision

The California Privacy Protection Agency's regulations under the California Consumer Privacy Act were approved by the Office of Administrative Law on September 22, 2025, with an effective date of January 1, 2026, according to the agency's rulemaking page. One part of them governs automated decisionmaking technology, which the rules shorten to ADMT. Parts of the rules follow, not the whole.

What Counts as Human Involvement

The rules define ADMT as any technology that processes personal information and uses computation "to replace human decisionmaking or substantially replace human decisionmaking." To substantially replace human decisionmaking, they say, means a business uses the technology's output to make a decision without human involvement.

The rules set out what human involvement requires of the human reviewer. The reviewer must "Know how to interpret and use the technology's output to make the decision." The reviewer must "Review and analyze the output of the technology, and any other information that is relevant to make or change the decision." And the reviewer must "Have the authority to make or change the decision based on their analysis in subsection (B)," which is the review and analysis just described.

All three, joined by "and."

This is the line a reviewer in name only falls on the wrong side of. A person who sees the output but cannot interpret it, or interprets it but cannot change the decision, does not meet the test the rules set.

Which Decisions the Rules Reach

A business that uses ADMT "to make a significant decision concerning a consumer must comply with the requirements" of the rules' article on ADMT. A significant decision, in the rules' definition, is one that results in the provision or denial of financial or lending services, housing, education enrollment or opportunities, employment or independent contracting opportunities or compensation, or healthcare services. Financial or lending services are defined as the extension of credit or a loan, transmitting or exchanging funds, the provision of deposit or checking accounts, check cashing, or installment payment plans.

A business that uses ADMT for a significant decision before January 1, 2027, "must be in compliance with the requirements of this Article no later than January 1, 2027." One that uses it on or after that date must comply any time it is using ADMT for a significant decision.

Notice, Opt-Out and Appeal

A business that uses ADMT for a significant decision must give consumers a "Pre-use Notice," and its additional information must include a plain language explanation of, among other things, how the output is used to make a significant decision. The rules give examples of what that "may include": whether the output is the sole factor in the decisionmaking process, and, to the extent that a human is part of that process in a manner that does not meet the requirements of human involvement in the rules' definitions, what that human's role is.

The rules also give consumers a right to opt out of ADMT for a significant decision, with exceptions. One applies where the business offers a way to appeal the decision "to a human reviewer who has the authority to overturn the decision." To qualify, the business must, among other things, designate a human reviewer to review and analyze the output of the ADMT "and any other information that is relevant to change the significant decision at issue," and must clearly describe to the consumer how to submit an appeal. That reviewer must consider what the consumer provides in support of the appeal, must know how to interpret and use the output, and must have the authority to change the decision based on that analysis. Two further exceptions cover admission, acceptance or hiring decisions, and the allocation or assignment of work and compensation, each with conditions; among them, the ADMT "works for the business's purpose and does not unlawfully discriminate based upon protected characteristics."