{"id":414418,"date":"2026-07-27T22:10:31","date_gmt":"2026-07-27T22:10:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/414418\/"},"modified":"2026-07-27T22:10:31","modified_gmt":"2026-07-27T22:10:31","slug":"effective-august-10-2026-the-amended-san-francisco-fair-chance-ordinance-will-impose-new-obligations-on-covered-employers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/414418\/","title":{"rendered":"Effective August 10, 2026, the Amended San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance Will Impose New Obligations on Covered Employers"},"content":{"rendered":"

In 2014, the City of San Francisco enacted its ban-the-box law, the Fair Chance Ordinance (FCO), which significantly restricted the ability of covered employers1 to inquire into, and use, criminal records for hiring and other employment purposes. This FCO is more robust than the later-enacted state law, the Fair Employment and Housing Act<\/a> (FEHA), because, among other things, the FEHA protects applicants only. Effective August 10, 2026, the amended FCO will impose new obligations on covered employers, including barring employers from inquiring about additional types of criminal records (e.g., out-of-state convictions for conduct that is lawful in California).\u00a0<\/p>\n

Expanded List of Impermissible Inquiries<\/p>\n

The amended FCO adds convictions and information that employers can never inquire into or rely on to take adverse action, including an \u201cAbortion-Related Healthcare Conviction,\u201d2 a \u201cDrag Conviction,\u201d3 a \u201cGender Affirming Care Conviction,\u201d4 and a \u201cSpontaneous Abortion-Related Conviction.\u201d5 According to the \u201cFindings\u201d portion of the ordinance, the amendments respond to the U.S. Supreme Court\u2019s opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women\u2019s Health Org., 597 U.S. 215 (2022) and the resulting \u201cpatchwork of regressive and harmful state legislation across the country, including bans on abortion without exceptions for rape, incest, or the health of a birthing person, and restrictions on access to contraception.\u201d6 The Findings state that the amendments \u201censure that no one living in San Francisco is adversely impacted while seeking affordable housing or employment due to cruel or discriminatory laws in other states.\u201d<\/p>\n

The FCO also continues to bar employers from inquiring into or considering various other information, including the following: arrests; participation in or completion of a diversion or a deferral of judgment program; a conviction that has been judicially dismissed, expunged, voided, invalidated, or otherwise rendered inoperative; a conviction or any other determination or adjudication in the juvenile justice system, or information regarding a matter considered in or processed through the juvenile justice system; a conviction that is more than seven years old, the date of conviction being the date of sentencing; information pertaining to an offense other than a felony or misdemeanor, such as an infraction; and a conviction that arises out of conduct that has been decriminalized since the date of the conviction, the date of the conviction being the date of sentencing.7<\/p>\n

Additional Obligations and Penalties<\/p>\n

As enacted, the FCO required a form of pre-adverse action notice, i.e., a mandatory notice of the potential adverse action sent before the effective date of the adverse action. The FCO still requires this notice but now requires \u201cconfirmation\u201d of receipt of information submitted by the applicant or employee if the submission is timely (i.e., received by the employer within seven days of the employer\u2019s initial notice). The notice of confirmation must be sent within 14 days.<\/p>\n

Further, the employer must delay any adverse action \u201cfor a reasonable period\u201d and \u201cduring that time shall reconsider the prospective Adverse Action in light of the information.\u201d Moreover, if \u201cthe applicant or employee makes a reasonable factual showing that the proposed Adverse Action is based solely on a conviction that is not a Directly-Related Conviction, the Employer must withdraw the Adverse Action.\u201d8<\/p>\n

The FCO increases the penalties available in administrative proceedings by the City\u2019s Office of Labor Standards Enforcement (OLSE) and in civil actions.<\/p>\n

Takeaways<\/p>\n

Employers covered by California law, particularly in San Francisco and also in Los Angeles and San Diego,9 must continue to be mindful<\/a> of the various overlapping layers of laws that govern inquiries into, and the use, of criminal records as well as the fair credit reporting laws, including the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). The state Civil Rights Department (CRD) remains focused on enforcing compliance<\/a> with the FEHA\u2019s criminal record protections. Possible action items include:<\/p>\n

Review and update job applications and related forms for impermissible inquiries regarding criminal records.Review written and electronic communications about the hiring process, including conditional job offer templates, background check disclosures, and pre-adverse action and adverse action notices.Review the hiring and screening process to help ensure compliance, including the timing of background checks, the distribution of mandatory notices, and the application of mandatory deferral periods.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In 2014, the City of San Francisco enacted its ban-the-box law, the Fair Chance Ordinance (FCO), which significantly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":414419,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[101,103,102,104,106,105],"class_list":["post-414418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414418","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=414418"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414418\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/414419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=414418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=414418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=414418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}