Maryland's facial recognition consent law for job interviews
On this page
- The statute, in one table
- What "facial recognition service" and "facial template" mean here
- Building a compliant waiver
- What the law does not cover
- The 2025 expansion that did not become law
- How this sits next to other states' rules
- Recording consent is a separate requirement
- A compliance checklist
- Common mistakes
- Questions people ask
Maryland Labor and Employment section 3-717 has applied since October 1, 2020. It prohibits an employer from using a facial recognition service to create a facial template of an applicant during a job interview, unless the applicant first signs a written waiver in a specific form. It is a narrow law: one technology, one moment in the hiring process, one consent mechanism, and no broader AI hiring framework attached to it.
This is not legal advice. It summarizes Maryland Code, Labor and Employment section 3-717 as enacted by Chapter 446 of the 2020 Session (House Bill 1202), published on mgaleg.maryland.gov, as of September 2026. Confirm the current codified text and any pending amendments with counsel before relying on this summary.
The statute, in one table
The bill that created section 3-717, House Bill 1202, was signed into law as Chapter 446 of the 2020 Session; the enrolled bill text is at mgaleg.maryland.gov. It took effect October 1, 2020 and has not been amended since.
| Element | What the statute says |
|---|---|
| The prohibition | An employer may not use a facial recognition service to create a facial template during an applicant's interview for employment. |
| The exception | Use is permitted if the applicant has consented, in writing, using the waiver described in subsection (c). |
| What the waiver must contain | Written in plain language: the applicant's name, the date of the interview, a statement the applicant consents to the use of facial recognition during the interview, and whether the applicant has read the waiver. |
| Who it protects | Applicants for employment, during their interview. The text does not extend to current employees. |
| Penalty | No penalty or private right of action is written into the section itself. |
What "facial recognition service" and "facial template" mean here
The statute's operative terms are specific rather than a general reference to "AI." A facial recognition service is technology that analyzes facial features to recognize or track an individual. A facial template is the machine-interpretable pattern a facial recognition service extracts from an image. The prohibition attaches to creating that template during the interview, which is the specific technical step of turning a candidate's face into a biometric data point the software can match or compare, not to recording video of the interview generally.
A plain video interview, recorded without any facial-analysis processing applied to it, does not on its own create a facial template and is not what this statute addresses. An interview tool that layers facial-expression or emotion analysis onto the video, or that uses facial geometry to verify or track the candidate's identity, is squarely the case the statute was written for. If you are not sure which category a given vendor feature falls into, ask the vendor directly whether it creates a facial template as part of its processing, rather than relying on how the feature is marketed.
Building a compliant waiver
The statute sets a floor, not a full form; an employer still has to draft the actual document. A waiver that tracks section 3-717(c) plainly, to adapt with counsel:
Facial Recognition Consent Waiver
Applicant name: ___________________________
Interview date: ___________________________
[Employer] uses facial recognition technology, provided by [vendor], during
this interview. This technology creates a facial template from your image to
[plain description of purpose, e.g., analyze facial expressions as part of
the interview assessment].
By signing below, you consent to the use of facial recognition technology,
including the creation of a facial template, during this interview.
Have you read this waiver? [ ] Yes [ ] No
Applicant signature: _______________________ Date: ______________
If you do not consent, [alternative, e.g., contact us to arrange an interview
without this technology].Two drafting choices matter beyond the statutory minimum. First, get the signed waiver before the interview starts, not folded into a general terms-of-service the candidate clicks through; the statute's structure (consent "under subsection (c)" as a condition of the exception) points to consent preceding use. Second, decide and write down what happens to an applicant who does not sign, since the statute does not require you to offer an alternative but also does not permit using the technology without consent; a plan avoids an awkward decision made on the spot by whoever is running that interview.
What the law does not cover
- Current employees. The text is limited to "an applicant's interview for employment." Facial recognition used later, for time-and-attendance or workplace security, is not addressed by this section (it may still be addressed by other Maryland or federal law, which is outside this page's scope).
- Voice, transcripts or general AI scoring. Section 3-717 is specific to facial recognition and facial templates. It does not regulate a tool that transcribes speech, scores answers against a rubric, or analyzes word choice, none of which create a facial template.
- A private right of action or penalty. The section does not itself state a remedy for violation. That does not make a violation risk-free: other Maryland consumer-protection or employment law, and reputational exposure, can attach to the same conduct even where this specific section is silent on penalties.
The 2025 expansion that did not become law
A bill moved through the 2025 Maryland General Assembly to expand section 3-717's definition of "employer" to reach state and local government employers explicitly. It passed the Senate 42-5 on March 12, 2025 and the House 129-10 on April 7, 2025, with a conference committee resolving differences and a final Senate vote the same day. Maryland's own legislative tracking shows no record of the bill being presented to or signed by the Governor, so it did not take effect. As of September 2026, the operative text of section 3-717 is still the original 2020 version. Recheck mgaleg.maryland.gov directly before assuming this has not changed again by the time you read this.
How this sits next to other states' rules
Maryland's law is deliberately narrow next to Illinois's approach. Compare it with the Illinois AI Video Interview Act, which covers any AI analysis of a recorded video interview, not only facial recognition, and adds notice, explanation, sharing limits and 30-day deletion duties on top of consent. See also BIPA and hiring tools for Illinois's separate biometric privacy statute, which, unlike Maryland's, includes a private right of action and has driven large settlements. And see AI hiring laws by state for how Maryland's single-issue statute compares with the broader frameworks other states have adopted.
Recording consent is a separate requirement
Maryland is commonly listed as an all-party consent state for recording private conversations under its wiretapping statute, Courts and Judicial Proceedings section 10-402. That is a different law from section 3-717, with a different trigger: it applies to recording the interview at all, audio or video, regardless of whether any facial recognition is involved. If your interview tool both records the call and performs facial-template analysis on the video, you need two separate consents in place: recording consent under the wiretapping statute and the facial-recognition waiver under section 3-717. Getting one does not substitute for the other, and a single combined consent screen should say plainly which technology each part of the consent covers. See two-party consent states for the recording-consent side of this.
This distinction trips up teams that adopt a video interview platform with a built-in "engagement" or "emotion" scoring feature enabled by default. The platform's own consent screen may cover recording without ever mentioning facial template creation, which leaves the section 3-717 waiver missing even though the vendor's terms of service technically disclosed the feature somewhere. Reading exactly what a video interview vendor's proctoring, emotion detection or engagement scoring feature does, rather than relying on its marketing name, is the only reliable way to know whether section 3-717 is triggered at all.
A compliance checklist
- Identify every interview tool used for Maryland-based interviews and ask each vendor, in writing, whether it creates a facial template as part of its processing.
- For any tool that does, build the section 3-717(c) waiver into the interview scheduling flow, before the interview, not after.
- Keep signed waivers on file, matched to the interview date and the applicant, for as long as your general hiring-records retention policy requires.
- Decide in advance what happens if an applicant declines, and train interviewers on that answer so it is not improvised.
- Do not assume a tool is covered just because it is described as "AI-powered"; confirm whether it specifically processes facial geometry into a template.
- Recheck mgaleg.maryland.gov each legislative session; the 2025 expansion attempt shows this section is an active target for amendment.
Common mistakes
| What people assume | What the statute says |
|---|---|
| "This law covers all AI interview tools in Maryland" | It covers only facial recognition services that create a facial template during an interview. |
| "Recording video is enough to trigger the law" | The trigger is creating a facial template, a specific biometric processing step, not video recording by itself. |
| "Verbal consent is enough" | Section 3-717(c) requires a written waiver with specific content. |
| "The 2025 amendment already expanded this to government employers" | That bill was not signed into law; the original 2020 text remains current as of September 2026. |
| "This protects employees generally" | The text is limited to applicants during their interview for employment. |
Questions people ask
What does Maryland's facial recognition law actually prohibit?
Labor and Employment section 3-717 prohibits an employer from using a facial recognition service to create a facial template of an applicant during a job interview, unless the applicant has first signed a specific written waiver consenting to it.
Does the waiver need to say anything besides "I consent"?
Yes. Section 3-717(c) requires the waiver to be written in plain language and to include the applicant's name, the date of the interview, a statement that the applicant consents to the technology's use during the interview, and whether the applicant read the waiver.
Does the law cover current employees or only applicants?
By its text, section 3-717 applies to "an applicant's interview for employment." It does not extend to current employees or to stages of employment after hiring, and it does not by its terms cover facial recognition used for purposes other than an employment interview.
Is there a 2026 update to this law?
Not one that has taken effect. A 2025 bill would have expanded the definition of "employer" to include state and local government, but Maryland's own legislative tracking shows it was not presented to or signed by the Governor, so the original 2020 text remains current as of September 2026. Confirm the current status on mgaleg.maryland.gov before relying on this.