AI Laws in Seattle, Washington
AI Laws USA tracks 41 AI rules that apply to people and businesses in Seattle, Washington: 10+ federal rules, 17 Washington state-level rules, and 14 local Seattle/county ordinances. Coverage is strongest on government use of AI, consumer data privacy, automated decision-making, and AI disclosure and transparency. 27 of these rules are already in effect. Each entry below links to its official source.
Seattle local AI rules (and King County)
14 local AI rules specific to Seattle, Washington or King County.
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In effect Strength: moderate
Seattle algorithmic rent-fixing ban (Ord. 127241 / SMC 7.34, July 2025)
Seattle, WA · Effective July 31, 2025 · Seattle Ord. 127241 / CB 121000, signed July 1, 2025, eff. July 31, 2025; codified SMC Chapter 7.34
Seattle City Council passed CB 121000 on June 24, 2025 (Mayor signed July 1, 2025; effective July 31, 2025), creating SMC Chapter 7.34 to prohibit algorithmic rent-fixing. The ordinance bans landlords from using software or data services that pool pricing recommendations based on nonpublic competitor data — targeting RealPage-style pricing coordination. Publicly available rent estimates and listings remain permitted. Penalties reach $7,500 per violation, and each affected rental unit counts separately. Tenants can also sue for actual damages plus attorneys' fees.
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In effect Strength: limited
Emergency 365-day moratorium on new data centers (>20 MVA)
Seattle · Effective June 9, 2026 · Seattle CB 121214 (2026)
Emergency 365-day temporary freeze on new data center siting in Seattle. Defines data centers as facilities with power capacity over 20 megavolt-amperes (MVA) used primarily to store and process digital data. May be extended for an additional six months. A public hearing is required within 60 days of adoption.
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In effect Strength: limited
Resolution setting Seattle data-center impact-study framework
Seattle · Effective June 9, 2026 · Seattle Res 32204 (2026)
Companion resolution to CB 121214. Calls for impact studies on data centers' effects on electrical grid reliability, water consumption, environmental sustainability, utility rates, land use, employment, public health, and community welfare. Requests coordinated cross-departmental action to develop future policies.
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Enacted (not yet in effect) Strength: stronger
Seattle CB 121267 grocery surveillance pricing ban (2026)
Seattle, WA · Effective September 1, 2027 · Seattle Council Bill 121267, Fair and Transparent Pricing ordinance (new SMC ch. 7.35; passed Sept. 22, 2026)
On September 22, 2026 the Seattle City Council voted 7-2 to pass the Fair and Transparent Pricing ordinance (Council Bill 121267; reported by Supermarket News as the Fair Pricing and Transparency Act), which bans large grocery retailers and delivery platforms from using a shopper's personal data, through algorithms, to set individualized prices for groceries and other essentials. Data covered includes things like browsing history, location, inferred income, race, gender, employment status, social media activity and chatbot conversations. Prices must be clearly posted and available to all shoppers equally, while ordinary coupons, loyalty programs and sales remain allowed. City officials describe Seattle as the first U.S. city to adopt such a ban.
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In effect Strength: limited
Seattle Generative AI Policy
Seattle, WA · Effective November 1, 2023 · City of Seattle, GenAI Policy POL-209 (eff. Nov. 1, 2023)
Seattle's generative AI policy governs how city employees use tools like ChatGPT. It requires attribution of AI-generated work, human review of all AI output before release, and limits on feeding personal information into AI systems, built around seven principles including bias reduction, transparency, and explainability.
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In effect Strength: moderate
Seattle Data Center Moratorium
Seattle, WA · Effective June 9, 2026 · Seattle Council Bill 121214 (adopted June 9, 2026)
On June 9, 2026 the Seattle City Council unanimously passed an emergency one-year moratorium on siting new large data centers (power capacity over 20 megavolt-amperes) while the city studies impacts on the electric grid, water, utility rates, land use, jobs, and public health. It is a temporary pause on large facilities, not a permanent citywide ban: existing data centers may continue operating and expand up to the 20 MVA cap, and the moratorium can be extended once for six months. Mayor Katie Wilson signed the ordinance; it took effect immediately upon signature.
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In effect Strength: limited
Seattle Public Schools AI Handbook + Superintendent Procedure 2022SP
Seattle, WA · Effective February 1, 2025 · Seattle Public Schools AI Handbook + Superintendent Procedure 2022SP (2025-02-01)
Handbook operates alongside SP 2022SP (Electronic Resources). Requires approved tools to comply with privacy law, treats unauthorized AI use or uncited use as a disciplinary policy breach, and directs schools to teach AI citation.
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In effect Strength: moderate
Seattle Surveillance Ordinance (SMC 14.18)
Seattle, WA · Effective August 2, 2017 · Ord. 125376 (2017-08-02)
Requires council review and approval of all city surveillance technologies, with public process and use policies.
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In effect Strength: limited
SPD FR Policy
Seattle, WA · Effective July 1, 2023 · Seattle Police Manual §12.045 (2023)
Seattle Police Department Manual policy generally prohibiting SPD officers from using facial recognition technology, with no department-issued FR tools and a ban on requesting third-party FR queries.
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In effect Strength: moderate
Seattle Surveillance Ordinance
Seattle, WA · Effective September 1, 2017 · Seattle Ordinance 125376 (2017), SMC ch. 14.18, as amended 2018
Seattle requires city departments to get City Council approval before acquiring or using surveillance technologies, supported by public Surveillance Impact Reports and review by a community working group. One of the earliest and most comprehensive municipal surveillance-oversight laws in the country.
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In effect Strength: limited
Council Bill 121000 - Ban on algorithmic rent fixing (SMC 7.
Seattle, WA · Effective June 24, 2025 · Council Bill 121000 - Ban on algorithmic rent fixing (SMC 7.34)
Seattle's CB 121000 (sponsored by Councilmember Cathy Moore, passed 7-0 on June 24, 2025, signed July 1, 2025) prohibits landlords from using software that runs automated analysis of housing-market data to generate inflated rent recommendations, with penalties up to $7,500 per violation and a tenant private right of action.
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In effect Strength: limited
Real-Time Crime Center Surveillance Impact Report and Crime
Seattle, WA · Effective October 1, 2024 · Real-Time Crime Center Surveillance Impact Report and Crime Prevention Technology Pilot legislation
Seattle's Real-Time Crime Center was authorized under the city's surveillance ordinance through a Council-approved Surveillance Impact Report, requiring Council sign-off for material changes and an independent Office of Inspector General evaluation of its analytics.
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In effect Strength: limited
King County GenAI Guidelines
King County, WA · Effective September 27, 2024 · King County, GenAI Guidelines for Employees (Sept. 2024)
King County issued guidelines for employee use of generative AI, developed jointly by King County IT and the Office of Equity, Racial and Social Justice. The guidelines aim to reduce bias and protect sensitive personal data entrusted to the county, with a software review process for GenAI tools.
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In effect Strength: moderate
King County FR Ban
King County, WA · Enacted June 1, 2021 · King County, Wash., Ordinance 19296 (June 1, 2021)
King County (the Seattle area) was the first US county to ban its government, including the Sheriff's Office, from using facial recognition technology. The unanimous 2021 ordinance also bars county agencies from getting facial recognition information through third parties. Remains in effect as of June 2026.
Washington-level AI rules most relevant to Seattle
17 Washington state rules apply to residents and businesses in Seattle. Showing the 8 most relevant to Seattle's local picture; 9 more are on the Washington jurisdiction page.
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In effect Strength: limited
Human-Centered AI Guidance for K-12 Public Schools
Washington Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) · Effective July 1, 2024 · Human-Centered AI Guidance for K-12 Public Schools
Washington's state superintendent issued 'Human-AI-Human' guidance for K-12 schools covering AI foundations, classroom implementation, ethical considerations, policy suggestions, and privacy compliance.
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In effect Strength: limited
Interim Guidelines for Purposeful and Responsible Use of Gen
Washington · Effective August 8, 2023 · Interim Guidelines for Purposeful and Responsible Use of Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Washington State Government
WaTech's interim guidelines establish principles and dos-and-don'ts for state employees using generative AI, covering fact-checking, bias reduction, attribution, and protection of sensitive or confidential data.
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In effect Strength: moderate
WA SB 6280 (2020, first-in-nation state FR-government law)
WA · Effective July 1, 2021 · RCW Ch. 43.386 (SB 6280, 2020)
Washington SB 6280 (signed March 31, 2020) was the first U.S. state law expressly regulating state and local government use of facial recognition. It requires accountability reports, public notice, warrant requirements for ongoing surveillance, and independent testing for accuracy and bias. Codified at RCW Ch. 43.386. Still in effect 2026.
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In effect Strength: stronger
Washington SHB 1672 (employee monitoring notice, ADS restrictions, emotion AI ban)
Washington · Effective July 1, 2026 · Wash. SHB 1672 (2025 Session), effective July 1, 2026
Washington SHB 1672, effective July 1, 2026, is one of the most comprehensive U.S. employer monitoring laws. Employers must give employees 15 calendar days' written notice before any monitoring begins or before any change to monitoring. Notice must specify what is monitored, the method used, the purpose, who can access the data, and how long it is retained. The law prohibits off-duty monitoring, monitoring in private spaces (bathrooms, locker rooms), and monitoring personal vehicles. It restricts AI-based emotion recognition, gait recognition, and facial recognition in employment-related decisions. Employers must conduct impact assessments before deploying automated decision systems and must provide human oversight of ADS-driven performance evaluations. Employees have a private right of action with damages of at least $500 per violation plus attorney fees. Civil penalties may reach $10,000 per violation. The law applies to any employer with one or more Washington employees, including remote employees of out-of-state companies.
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In effect Strength: limited
WA SB 5982 (Data Center / Clean Energy)
Washington · Effective June 11, 2026 · WA SB 5982, Chapter 181, Laws of 2026 (2025-26 Leg. Sess.)
Washington bill that closes a loophole in the state's 100% clean energy law (Clean Energy Transformation Act) so that large customers — especially data centers — must meet the same carbon-neutrality and renewable-energy deadlines as electric utilities. Signed by Governor Ferguson on 2026-03-24 as Chapter 181, Laws of 2026; in effect since 2026-06-11.
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In effect Strength: moderate
Plateau Peoples TK/BC Labels
Plateau Peoples' Web Portal (Multi-Tribal) · Effective January 1, 2015 · Plateau Peoples' Web Portal — multi-tribal TK/BC Labels initiative
Six Plateau tribes — Colville, Umatilla, Warm Springs, Yakama, Spokane, and Coeur d'Alene — jointly implement Local Contexts Traditional Knowledge and Biocultural Labels on digital cultural-heritage collections. A working Indigenous data sovereignty mechanism applicable to AI training data: labels travel with the data and assert community-defined access and use rules.
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In effect Strength: limited
My Health My Data Act
Washington · Effective March 31, 2024 · RCW ch. 19.373
A sweeping health-data privacy law covering 'consumer health data' far beyond HIPAA — including biometric data, health inferences drawn by algorithms, and reproductive health information. Companies need consent to collect or share such data, must honor deletion requests, and cannot geofence health facilities. Consumers can sue under Washington's Consumer Protection Act.
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In effect Strength: limited
WA EO 24-01
WA · Effective January 30, 2024 · Wash. Exec. Order No. 24-01 (Jan. 19, 2024)
Governor Inslee's EO 24-01 directs WaTech to develop generative AI guidelines for Washington state government, identify high-value GenAI initiatives, and catalog high-risk uses across agencies.
Federal AI rules that apply in Seattle, Washington
These federal rules apply everywhere in the United States, including Seattle, Washington. Showing the 10 strongest and most recent.
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In effect Strength: stronger
TVA data center capacity commitment charge (2026)
Tennessee Valley Authority · Effective October 1, 2026 · Tenn. Valley Auth. Bd. of Dirs. — Data Center Capacity Commitment Charge (approved Aug. 20, 2026; eff. Oct. 1, 2026)
The Tennessee Valley Authority's Board of Directors approved a separate, higher wholesale rate for data centers on August 20, 2026, effective October 1. New or expanding data center loads above 5 megawatts now fall under a Capacity Commitment Charge attached to TVA's data center rate schedules, designed to recover the incremental capacity costs those customers impose on the system. The headline figures are substantial: upfront capacity commitment charges of roughly $1.5 million per megawatt, payable over three to five years, and an all-in average billing increase for data center customers of about 10%, phased in across three consecutive fiscal years. The stated purpose is to keep residential rates low while still serving growing data center demand. TVA matters here out of proportion to a single utility. It is a federal corporate agency supplying power across seven states, so this is not a state rate case but a regional cost-allocation decision reaching a large share of the Southeast — and TVA is among the first large US utilities to adopt a tariff aimed specifically at AI-driven load. Where most 2026 measures in this dataset restrict where data centers may be built, this one changes what they pay to run.
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In effect Strength: stronger
Bartz v. Anthropic
N.D. Cal. · Effective September 5, 2025 · Bartz v. Anthropic PBC, No. 3:24-cv-05417 (N.D. Cal.)
Authors Andrea Bartz, Charles Graeber, and Kirk Wallace Johnson sued Anthropic over its use of pirated-book datasets to train Claude. In June 2025 Judge William Alsup ruled that training on lawfully purchased books was fair use. The piracy claims (LibGen ingestion) proceeded toward settlement; in September 2025 Anthropic agreed to a $1.5 billion class settlement covering ~500,000 works. Judge Alsup granted preliminary approval September 25, 2025 and final approval July 20, 2026. The appeal period runs through August 19, 2026; class members will not receive payments until at least end of 2026.
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In effect Strength: stronger
COPPA + 2025 Rule (childrens data)
United States · Effective June 23, 2025 · 15 U.S.C. §§ 6501–6506; 16 C.F.R. Part 312
COPPA requires online services aimed at children under 13 to get verifiable parental consent before collecting kids' personal data. The 2025 rule update — fully in effect since April 22, 2026 — adds biometric identifiers (like face templates and voiceprints, which matter for AI tools), requires separate parental consent before sharing children's data for targeted advertising, and tightens data retention limits.
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In effect Strength: stronger
TAKE IT DOWN Act
United States · Effective May 19, 2025 · Pub. L. No. 119-12 (S. 146)
Makes it a federal crime to knowingly publish intimate images of someone without consent, including AI-generated deepfakes. Social media and similar platforms must give victims a way to request removal and must take the content (and known copies) down within 48 hours. The platform removal requirement became enforceable May 19, 2026, and the FTC has already begun enforcement.
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Blocked / in litigation
NetChoice v. Yost (Ohio)
S.D. Ohio · Effective April 16, 2025 · NetChoice, LLC v. Yost, No. 2:24-cv-00047 (S.D. Ohio Apr. 16, 2025)
Ohio's Social Media Parental Notification Act — requiring parental consent for minors' social-media use, including algorithmic feeds — was preliminarily enjoined on February 12, 2024, then permanently enjoined on April 16, 2025 when the district court granted summary judgment for NetChoice. The state appealed to the Sixth Circuit, which vacated the district court's injunction in 2026.
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In effect Strength: stronger
Thaler v. Perlmutter (Copyright)
D.C. Cir. · Effective March 18, 2025 · Thaler v. Perlmutter, 130 F.4th 1039 (D.C. Cir. 2025)
The companion copyright case: Stephen Thaler sought to register a copyright with 'Creativity Machine' (his AI) as the author. The D.C. Circuit affirmed in March 2025 that the Copyright Act's human-authorship requirement is dispositive as a matter of statutory law. AI cannot be a copyright author under U.S. law.
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In effect Strength: stronger
Louis v. SafeRent
D. Mass. · Effective November 20, 2024 · Louis v. SafeRent Solutions, LLC, No. 1:22-cv-10800 (D. Mass.)
SafeRent agreed in November 2024 to a $2.275M settlement and a five-year ban on using its 'SafeRent Score' for housing-voucher applicants, after a class action alleged its AI tenant-screening tool systematically denied housing to Black and Hispanic Section 8 voucher holders. The first major AI tenant-screening Fair Housing Act settlement.
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In effect Strength: stronger
FTC Impersonation Rule (AI)
United States · Effective April 1, 2024 · 16 C.F.R. Part 461; 89 Fed. Reg. 15017
The FTC's Impersonation Rule lets the agency directly sue scammers who pretend to be a government agency or a real business — including those who use AI-cloned voices or generated images to do so. Civil penalties can reach $53,088 per violation. The FTC also issued a supplemental notice in February 2024 proposing to extend the rule to all individual impersonation.
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In effect Strength: stronger
FTC v. Rite Aid
FTC · Effective February 26, 2024 · FTC v. Rite Aid Corp., No. 2:23-cv-05023 (E.D. Pa. Dec. 19, 2023)
The FTC banned Rite Aid from using facial-recognition technology in its stores for five years after finding the pharmacy chain's FRT system falsely tagged customers — disproportionately women and people of color — as shoplifters, leading to wrongful detentions and humiliations.
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In effect Strength: stronger
TCPA (AI voice calls)
United States · Effective February 8, 2024 · 47 U.S.C. § 227; FCC 24-17
Robocalls using AI-cloned or AI-generated voices are treated like other 'artificial voice' calls: callers need your prior express consent, must identify themselves, and must offer opt-outs for telemarketing. You can personally sue violators for $500 to $1,500 per illegal call.
Frequently asked questions about AI laws in Seattle, Washington
Are there AI laws in Seattle, Washington?
What federal AI rules apply in Seattle?
Does Washington have an AI privacy law?
Are deepfakes illegal in Washington?
Can my employer use AI to screen me for jobs in Seattle?
How do I report an AI law violation in Seattle?
Are facial recognition cameras allowed in Seattle?
Is Seattle regulated by Washington's consumer privacy act?
Compliance guides for Washington businesses
Plain-English guides to the Washington AI and data laws companies most often need to comply with:
Have we missed an AI rule in Seattle?
This page is generated from our open civic dataset. If you know of a Seattle ordinance, county rule, or local enforcement action we should add, email feedback@ailawsusa.com or submit a correction. Every entry must include a verifiable source.