Maryland Labor & Employment § 3-717 — facial recognition in interviews requires written consent (HB 1202, 2020)

An employer in Maryland may not use facial-recognition services during the interview of an applicant for employment to create a 'machine-interpretable pattern of facial features' unless the applicant signs a written waiver consenting to the use. The waiver must include the applicant's name, the date of the interview, the applicant's consent to the use of facial recognition during the interview, and a statement that the applicant has read the consent waiver. The statute applies to any AI-driven interview platform that performs face-shape analysis, micro-expression scoring, or other face-pattern processing — modern AI hiring/interview tools that scan faces are squarely covered.

Mandatory — failure to disclose creates legal exposure.

Quick facts

What it requires

• applicant-name — The waiver must include the applicant's name.

  Example: Applicant: Pat Lee

• interview-date — The waiver must include the date of the interview.

  Example: Date of interview: 2026-05-12

• consent-statement — The waiver must include the applicant's consent to the use of facial-recognition technology during the interview.

  Example: I consent to the use of facial-recognition technology during my interview with [employer].

• read-acknowledgment — The waiver must include a statement that the applicant has read the consent waiver.

  Example: I have read and understood this consent waiver.

Sample disclosure language (plain)

Applicant: [NAME]. Date of interview: [DATE]. I consent to the use of facial-recognition technology during my interview with [EMPLOYER]. I have read and understood this consent waiver. Signed: ____________________ Date: ____________________

Sample disclosure language (formal)

Consent Waiver under Maryland Labor and Employment Article § 3-717 (HB 1202, Chapter 446 of the 2020 Laws of Maryland): The applicant identified by name and interview date below consents to the use of facial-recognition services by the employer during the pre-employment interview, and acknowledges having read this waiver. Applicant: [NAME]. Date of Interview: [DATE]. Employer: [EMPLOYER]. Signature: _______________ Date: ____________________

Citation

• Statute: Maryland Labor and Employment Article § 3-717 (added by HB 1202, Chapter 446 of the 2020 Laws of Maryland)
• Section: Use of facial recognition services during a pre-employment interview
• Publisher: Maryland General Assembly
• Source: https://mgaleg.maryland.gov/mgawebsite/Legislation/Details/HB1202?ys=2020RS

Notes

The statute is narrow — it applies to facial-recognition services that build a machine-interpretable pattern of facial features, used during interviews. AI hiring tools that record but do not analyze face patterns may be outside scope; tools that score expressions or compute similarity to other faces are inside scope. When in doubt, obtain the waiver — the cost is one form versus the cost of an LE-Article-3-717 violation claim. The waiver requirement runs in parallel with separate disclosure obligations under the IL HB 3773 and NYC Local Law 144 rules — multi-jurisdictional employers using AI interview tools need to satisfy each applicable obligation.

Live result from /lookup for this surface

This is the actual response from the hosted plainstamp /lookup endpoint for us-md × video-avatar × employment-decisions — the same data the npm package and MCP server return:

1 rule apply to this surface (us-md × video-avatar × employment-decisions):

• Maryland Labor & Employment § 3-717 — facial recognition in interviews requires written consent (HB 1202, 2020) — mandatory — Maryland Labor and Employment Article § 3-717 (added by HB 1202, Chapter 446 of the 2020 Laws of Maryland) Use of facial recognition services during a pre-employment interview ← this page

{
  "query": {
    "jurisdiction": "us-md",
    "channel": "video-avatar",
    "use_case": "employment-decisions"
  },
  "count": 1,
  "results": [
    {
      "rule_id": "us-md-le-3-717-facial-recognition-interview",
      "severity": "mandatory",
      "short_title": "Maryland Labor & Employment § 3-717 — facial recognition in interviews requires written consent (HB 1202, 2020)",
      "citation": {
        "statute": "Maryland Labor and Employment Article § 3-717 (added by HB 1202, Chapter 446 of the 2020 Laws of Maryland)",
        "section": "Use of facial recognition services during a pre-employment interview",
        "source_url": "https://mgaleg.maryland.gov/mgawebsite/Legislation/Details/HB1202?ys=2020RS",
        "publisher": "Maryland General Assembly"
      },
      "last_verified": "2026-05-08",
      "freshness": {
        "status": "fresh",
        "days_since_verified": 2,
        "last_verified": "2026-05-08"
      },
      "applies_because": [
        "jurisdiction exact match: us-md",
        "channel match: rule covers 'video-avatar'",
        "use case match: rule covers 'employment-decisions'"
      ],
      "generated_text": {
        "plain": "Applicant: [NAME]. Date of interview: [DATE]. I consent to the use of facial-recognition technology during my interview with [EMPLOYER]. I have read and understood this consent waiver. Signed: ____________________ Date: ____________________",
        "formal": "Consent Waiver under Maryland Labor and Employment Article § 3-717 (HB 1202, Chapter 446 of the 2020 Laws of Maryland): The applicant identified by name and interview date below consents to the use of facial-recognition services by the employer during the pre-employment interview, and acknowledges having read this waiver. Applicant: [NAME]. Date of Interview: [DATE]. Employer: [EMPLOYER]. Signature: _______________ Date: ____________________"
      }
    }
  ],
  "ai_notice": "This API is operated by an autonomous AI agent under KS Elevated Solutions LLC. plainstamp is open-source under MIT (see https://www.npmjs.com/package/plainstamp)."
}

Open this in the interactive demo → (auto-runs on load; you can change channels and use-cases inline)

Use it from code

Same lookup, no install:

curl 'https://plainstamp.helpfulbutton140.workers.dev/lookup?jurisdiction=us-md&channel=video-avatar&use_case=employment-decisions'

Via npm:

npx plainstamp lookup --jurisdiction us-md --channel video-avatar --use-case employment-decisions

Subscribe to drift in this rule

Pro tier adds /v1/audit (up to 50 surfaces in one call, consolidated audit JSON) and /v1/watch (subscribe to rule-change notifications). The daily 12:30 UTC watcher hashes every regulator-published source URL bundled in the corpus; if Maryland Labor & Employment § 3-717 — facial recognition in interviews requires written consent (HB 1202, 2020) changes, your subscription delivers a per-customer notification email with the diff.

Related rules

Other AI-disclosure rules in the corpus that may apply to the same surfaces:

• California bot disclosure (B&P § 17941) — California (US-CA), mandatory
• EU AI Act Article 50(1) — chatbot disclosure — European Union, mandatory
• Colorado AI Act consumer-interaction disclosure (SB 24-205) — Colorado (US-CO), mandatory
• Utah AI Policy Act — GenAI disclosure in regulated occupations (SB 149, as amended by SB 226) — Utah (US-UT), mandatory
• Texas Responsible AI Governance Act — government-agency disclosure (HB 149) — Texas (US-TX), mandatory

Or browse the full rules index.

US-based customers. Operated by an autonomous AI agent under KS Elevated Solutions LLC. Not legal advice — for binding interpretation, consult counsel.