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April 6, 2026
On March 11, 2026, Washington State Governor Bob Ferguson signed House Bill 2303 into law, prohibiting employers from requiring, coercing, or pressuring employees and/or job applicants to have microchips implanted in their bodies as a condition of employment (the “Law”). The Law becomes effective on June 11, 2026.
Don’t worry. We have found no evidence of a widespread practice for requiring microchips as a condition of employment. The Law is largely preemptive in nature.
The Law
The Law’s purpose is to protect individual liberty and bodily autonomy and prevent workplace surveillance abuses. The Law highlights that, without clear safeguards in place, the technological advances in implanting microchips and other tracking devices into the human body threaten personal privacy, individual dignity, and freedom of choice in the workplace.
The Law defines “microchip” as a product, device, or technology that is subcutaneously implanted in the body of an individual and contains a unique identification number and personal information that can be noninvasively retrieved or transmitted with an external scanning device. This definition does not include devices implanted in individuals for the purposes of diagnosing, monitoring, treating, or preventing a health condition, and which transmit information only as is necessary to carry out such purposes.
Advantages for Employees
The Law provides strong bodily autonomy protection by reinforcing the bright-line rule that no employer has control over an employee’s physical body and by prohibiting employers from pressuring their employees and job applicants into participating in invasive procedures.
The Law addresses privacy and surveillance concerns regarding microchips being used to control and monitor an individual’s behavior and prevents the potential for tracking and monitoring an individual and collecting data related to that individual. The Law also covers not only explicit mandates by the employer, but also subtle pressure, and protects vulnerable employees from economic coercion.
The Law creates a private right of action for employees, allowing them to initiate lawsuits against an employer violating the Law and entitling the employee to seek redress in court—through injunctive relief, damages, and attorney’s fees.
Potential Disadvantages for Employees
The Law may limit participation in potential technology benefits offered by an employer. For instance, an employer may be reluctant to implement certain convenience features for its employees such as keyless entry, timekeeping, or payment options.
The Law applies only to microchips—it does not specifically address the use of wearable monitoring devices, biometric tracking, or AI-driven monitoring of employees. Thus, the Law does not address broader workplace surveillance concerns.
Advantages for Employers
The Law provides a clear compliance standard for employers. That is, there is no microchipping … period (for employees and job applicants). The Law aligns with emerging human rights and technology ethics norms and can act to prevent future privacy lawsuits or reputational harm against employers. The Law’s uniformity across the workforce allows employers to avoid managing opt-in/opt-out systems, accommodation disputes, and consent frameworks.
Disadvantages for Employers
The Law eliminates, or at least discourages, an employer’s potential use of microchips for site access, timekeeping, payments, and workflow automation, even if these options are voluntary for employees.
The Law expands an employer’s exposure to liability because it creates a new statutory cause of action for employees, allowing employees to recover compensatory damages, potential punitive damages, and attorney’s fees. The Law’s broad “coercion” standard may also act to increase an employer’s exposure to litigation because even perceived coercion is a potential violation (e.g., informal suggestions/comments, implied expectations, workplace culture pressures). The Law also implements fines for employers who violate it—$10,000 minimum fine for a first offense and $20,000 fines for each additional violation.
Critics of the Law suggest that it addresses a non-existent, or extremely rare, problem and it may unnecessarily restrict innovation in the workplace.
Takeaways for Employers
Employers need to stay on top of the rapid advancements in workplace technology and proactively revise their policies regarding workplace technology, privacy/data use, and codes of conduct and ethics. While the Law addresses a currently limited concern, it does create a new litigation risk for employers and potentially signals stricter future regulations of workplace technology.
Employers should implement a written policy that expressly prohibits the use of implantable microchips in any employment-related context. The policy should also prohibit any discussions or promotion of implantable microchips with employees. Employers should avoid implementing voluntary programs concerning the use of microchips because the Law prohibits requesting or pressuring such use, and incentivizing the use of microchips could be interpreted as economic coercion.
Multi-state employers should standardize their technology policies nationwide, as other states are likely to follow Washington in enacting their own technology and data privacy laws. (See our recent article here about employer surveillance restrictions in Maine). Using a stricter state’s law will prevent uneven application of policies and likely reduce the risk of litigation in other jurisdictions.
Finally, employers must be aware that, while the Law is narrow (it addresses only microchips), their real risk of legal exposure is likely with the required use of adjacent technologies like biometrics (fingerprint, facial recognition), wearables (health trackers, location tracking), and AI-driven monitoring systems, as scrutiny of these related technologies may increase in the near future.
The key takeaway for employers is simple: do not engage in microchipping of employees or job applicants.
The author of this article, Peter Nakonechni, is a member of the Bars of Pennsylvania and New Jersey. This article is designed to provide one perspective regarding recent legal developments, and is not intended to serve as legal advice in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Washington, or any other jurisdiction, nor does it establish an attorney-client relationship with any reader of the article where one does not exist. Always consult an attorney with specific legal issues.
