The CDER (Center for Drug Evaluation and Research) at the FDA faced a tough time in 2020 because it had to fill nearly 900 vacancies within a short period of time. Even before the outbreak began, the center was working on updating the new drugs regulatory program of the FDA. Along with new restrictions that have impacted everyone during the pandemic, including travel restrictions and lockdowns, it had to deal with “a surge in work.”
According to documents obtained by The Markup, they therefore made the decision to use an artificial intelligence application to expedite the employment process. According to the background part of a statement of work, the center was working with the Division of Management Services and the Office of Management to create a “recruitment plan to leverage artificial intelligence (AI) to assist in the time to hire process.”
In the end, the firm decided to use HireVue, an online platform that lets recruiters play video games throughout the application process and examine asynchronously recorded video interviews. The software has also included a range of AI tools that automatically score applicants over time. In the past, HireVue controversially offered facial analysis to determine if a candidate would be a good fit for a position that was open. Recent studies have demonstrated the racial bias of facial recognition algorithms. One member of the company’s scientific advisory board resigned in 2019 due to the technique’s continued use. Since then, facial recognition has been discontinued.
The Markup found organisations that use HireVue using GovSpend, a database of procurement records for federal, state, and municipal U.S. authorities. We also looked for organisations that use Controlio, Teramind and ActivTrak, two more contentious programs that let employers use screenshots and records to keep an eye on their employees’ browsing habits. To find out how those 24 agencies were utilising the software, The Markup made contact with them and submitted requests for public records.
In response to The Markup, eleven government organizations—including the FDA—provided records or affirmations confirming they have purchased HireVue at some point since 2017. With the exception of Lake Travis Independent School District in Texas, all six public entities that responded to The Markup’s enquiries attesting to their actual use of the program denied using its AI rating functions. Thirteen agencies’ comments and documents attested to the fact that they bought Controlio, Teramind or ActivTrak at some point in the same period.
In a written statement, HireVue CEO Kevin Parker stated that the company’s AI-driven prehire assessments are not used by any of its federal clients, which include the Army and U.S. Customs and Border Protection, according to public documents.
Michael Felberbaum, the FDA’s acting assistant commissioner for public affairs, stated in an email to The Markup that “CDER has not used Hire Vue’s predictive tools,” despite the agency’s initial plan to use AI to expedite hiring.
Felberbaum declined to provide further details about the agency’s change of direction.
Employee Surveillance
As many office workers switched to working from home during the pandemic, the Los Angeles Times reported in November that the usage of software that enables businesses to remotely monitor their employees has grown in popularity. For more info, keep yourself abreast of the rules for employee monitoring in 2026, since the standards of employee privacy, consent, disclosure, and surveillance differ from place to place.
A few government organisations were on the cutting edge.
According to Neal Kelley, the main election official for Orange County, California, the Registrar of Voters has Controlio installed on all of its computers for election security reasons. The county conducted a study on the product in 2019, according to emails obtained from the county.
Controlio allows supervisors to log employees’ screens and keystrokes for later inspection, according to its marketing materials. The business asserts that it can identify and stop what it refers to as “insider threats” and keep an eye on things like the volume of emails sent by staff members and the frequency with which they upload files to the internet.
“We needed a solution that we could use to quietly monitor a small handful of computers to make sure the users were staying on task,” Waldrop noted in an email.
According to Bennett Cyphers, a staff technologist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation who has studied employee monitoring firms, corporations occasionally advertise their apps as a means for employers to acquire evidence in the event of a lawsuit or build cases against employees without their knowledge. Controlio highlights in their marketing materials that the software’s goal is to “stimulate productivity and strengthen data security” and that being open about how it is used might result in “a more trusting, positive monitoring experience.”
