Ideally/ostensibly, this data collection is helpful for accountability, at the company level and also entities like Labor Dept. statistics. The concern is that

Ideally/ostensibly, this data collection is helpful for accountability, at the company level and also entities like Labor Dept. statistics. The concern is that companies who strive to be colorblind and non-discriminatory in their hiring don't end up that way in reality. And that assessment is impossible without some effort at data collection.