SB 5937 — Concerning the use of a smart access system in a residential property subject to the residential landlord-tenant act.

ENGROSSEDS-3550.3 SUBSTITUTE SENATE BILL 5937 State of Washington 69th Legislature 2026 Regular Session By Senate Housing (originally sponsored by Senators Pedersen, Goehner, and Bateman)Bateman READPrefiled FIRST12/23/25. TIME 01/19/26.

Read first time 01/12/26.

Referred to Committee on Housing.

and adding new sections to chapter 59.18 RCW;RCW.

and providing an effective date.

1 ESSBSB 5937 (b) A fingerprint;

2 ESSBSB 5937 foreign assets control search, all based on at least seven years of address history and alias information provided by the prospective tenant or available in the consumer credit report.

3 ESSBSB 5937 (c) The homeowner has a good faith belief that he or she is likely to default on the mortgage within the upcoming four months due to a lack of funds, and the homeowner has reported this belief to:

4 ESSBSB 5937 having a joint or common interest, or any other legal or commercial entity.

5 ESSBSB 5937 access building, a dwelling unit of a smart access building, or a common area of a smart access building.

A smart access system does not include methods of entry that solely rely upon a keypad or similar device that utilizes the manual entering of a coded sequence of numbers, letters, or both.

(a) A federal program or state housing program administered by the department of commerce or the Washington state housing finance commission;

6 ESSBSB 5937 (a)(b) A federal program or state housing program administered by thea departmentcity of commerce or thecounty Washingtongovernment; state housing finance commission;

(b) A federal housing program administered by a city or county government;

(((38))) (43) "Transitional housing" means housing units owned, operated, or managed by a nonprofit organization or governmental entity in which supportive services are provided to individuals and families that were formerly homeless, with the intent to stabilize them and move them to permanent housing within a period of not more than 24 months, or longer if the program is limited to tenants within a specified age range or the program is intended for tenants in need p.

7 ESSBSB 5937 them and move them to permanent housing within a period of not more than 24 months, or longer if the program is limited to tenants within a specified age range or the program is intended for tenants in need of time to complete and transition from educational or training or service programs.

(4) A method of entry that solely relies upon a keypad or similar(4) deviceOther thatform utilizes the manual entering of aphysical codedaccess. sequence of numbers, letters, or both;

or (5) Other form of physical access.

(2) The landlord of a smart access building, or an agent thereof, must provide to tenants, either upon the initial signing of a lease agreement or withinupon five days of the installation of the smart access system, a written policy in plain language that describes, at a p.minimum, the following information if it is not included in the privacy policy described in subsection (1) of this section:

8 ESSB 5937 minimum, the following information if it is not included in the privacy policy described in subsection (1) of this section:

(b)p. The protocols and safeguards the landlord will provide for protecting such data elements;

8 SB 5937 (b) The protocols and safeguards the landlord will provide for protecting such data elements;

(3) If the information required to be provided under subsection (2) of this section is provided by the smart access system developer and the landlord does not retain or sell any information from the smart access system, a landlord is compliant with the requirements of this section by providing the privacy policy of the developer or by providing a link to the developer's website which contains the privacy policy of the smart access system.

(e) The identification card number or any identifier associated with the physical hardware used to facilitate building entry, p.including radio frequency identification card, bluetooth, or other similar technical protocols;

9(f) ESSBPasswords, 5937passcodes, includinguser radionames, frequencyand identificationcontact card,information bluetooth,used singly or in conjunction with other similarreference technicaldata protocols;to grant a user entry to a smart access building, dwelling unit of a building, or common area of a building through the building's smart access p.

(f)9 Passwords,SB passcodes,5937 user names, and contact information used singly or in conjunction with other reference data to grant a user entry to a smart access building, dwelling unit of a building, or common area of a building through the building's smart access system, or to access any online tools used to manage user accounts related to a building;

and (h) The time and method of access, solely for security and operational purposes.

NEW SECTION.

Sec.

5.

This act takes effect January 1, 2027.

10 ESSBSB 5937