Expunged ‘by design’: on the potential of AI to be a partial enabler in the expungement process

Abstract

Expungement, which traditionally permitted reintegration into society and the turning over of a new leaf–thus giving a second chance to people who had had the misfortune to fall foul of criminal justice systems–is a legal institution that is currently being undermined. As the cyber-vetting of potential employees is a growing trend, employers readily turn to the internet in order to seek information about job candidates. In this article, the role of expungement in legal systems and society will be examined, as well as the changing reality that is undermining expungement, in order to determine how the issue of expungement should be addressed. In particular, the article discusses the possibility of expungement being incorporated in search engines (including AI chatbots) and in the actual design of AI recruitment tools in order to facilitate the re-entry of ex-offenders into the employment marketplace.