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User: Will the Michigan and Wisconsin bills to ban VPNs affect corporate VPNs and WFH?

Will the Michigan and Wisconsin bills to ban VPNs affect corporate VPNs and WFH?

Assistant: Short answer: right now, no – nothing has changed for corporate VPNs or working from home in Michigan or Wisconsin.

Short answer: right now, no – nothing has changed for corporate VPNs or working from home in Michigan or Wisconsin. But if Michigan’s bill ever passed as written it could be very bad for corporate VPNs, while Wisconsin’s bill is mostly about blocking VPNs on adult-content sites, not work VPNs.

I’ll break it down by state.

1. Where things stand today

• Neither bill is law yet. - Michigan – HB 4938 (“Anticorruption of Public Morals Act”) was introduced on September 11, 2025 and, as of late November, hasn’t moved beyond introduction/printing in the House.Michigan Legislature - Wisconsin – AB 105 / SB 130 has passed the Assembly and is sitting in the Senate “available for scheduling”, but has not been signed into law.FastDemocracy

So your current WFH/corporate VPN setup is unaffected in both states right now.

2. Michigan: HB 4938 and corporate VPNs

HB 4938 is the really extreme one:

• It targets online “public morals” / adult content and even depictions of transgender people, and then goes after the tools used to bypass filtering.TechRadar
• The bill would require ISPs in Michigan to “monitor and block known circumvention tools”, defining those as “any software, hardware, or service designed to bypass internet filtering mechanisms or content restrictions, including virtual private networks (VPNs), proxy servers, and encrypted tunneling methods.”TechRadar

Because it explicitly names VPNs and encrypted tunnels, and puts the duty on ISPs (not just porn sites), a strict reading would mean:

• Any VPN tunnel running over a Michigan ISP could be blocked.
• That includes: - Corporate remote-access VPN for WFH - Site-to-site VPNs between a Michigan office and another office/data center - SASE / zero-trust solutions that rely on encrypted tunnels

Digital rights groups and VPN providers have pointed out that this would break normal business, education, and secure communication – not just porn viewing.TechRadar

So:

If HB 4938 actually passed as written and were enforced literally, yes, it would very likely hit corporate VPNs and WFH in Michigan.

Realistically, though:

• It’s stalled (no hearings or votes yet).FastDemocracy
• It would almost certainly face immediate constitutional challenges (First Amendment, privacy, commerce, etc.) and massive pushback from business, education, and civil-liberties groups.
• In practice, if it moves at all, it would probably be heavily amended or tied up in court before an ISP actually starts dropping all VPN tunnels.

3. Wisconsin: AB 105 / SB 130 and corporate VPNs

Wisconsin’s bill is different and more targeted:

• It’s an age-verification and “harmful to minors” bill.
• It requires websites that distribute certain “sexual content” / “material harmful to minors” to: 1. Implement age verification, and 2. Block users connecting via VPN when accessing that content.TechRadar

Key points for your WFH question:

• The obligation is on websites, not on ISPs or on you as an end user.
• It is about using a VPN to access specific types of content (adult / “harmful to minors”), not about using a VPN to reach your company network.

So if AB 105 / SB 130 passes in its current form, the most likely real‑world effect is:

• Adult-content and other “sexual content” sites will either: - Block all traffic they think is from VPNs, or - Block all VPN traffic worldwide to avoid liability, since they can’t reliably tell which VPN users are in Wisconsin.Electronic Frontier Foundation

That could cause collateral damage, such as:

• Some sites overzealously blocking traffic from: - Data-center IP ranges - SASE egress points - Corporate exit IPs that look “VPN-ish” to their vendor

But importantly:

The Wisconsin bill does not ban you from using a corporate VPN to do your job or require ISPs to block VPN tunnels generally. It’s about blocking VPN access to certain websites, not blocking VPNs as a networking tool.

Your WFH tunnel to your employer’s private network should remain legal and technically unaffected, unless you’re trying to visit one of the regulated sites through that same tunnel and they decide to block that egress IP.

4. Practical takeaways for WFH & IT teams

For employees / WFH folks in MI or WI:

• You don’t need to change your work VPN setup today.
• The Michigan bill, if revived and passed without carve‑outs, is the one that could truly break WFH inside the state.
• The Wisconsin bill is mostly about porn sites + VPNs, not day‑to‑day work connectivity.

For corporate / IT / security teams:

• Keep an eye on HB 4938 in Michigan and AB 105 / SB 130 in Wisconsin: - If you have offices or a large workforce in those states, your legal/compliance team will probably want to track amendments and court challenges.
• Consider: - Having non‑VPN fallback options (e.g., app‑level HTTPS access) just in case something weird happens at the ISP level. - Making sure internal acceptable‑use policies already forbid employees from using corporate VPN egress to access adult content – that can help distance corporate traffic from the content these bills are targeting.
• This is general information, not legal advice. For decisions that affect your company’s risk posture, talk to counsel or external experts who follow state telecom / First Amendment litigation.

If you tell me whether you’re asking as an individual remote worker or as someone responsible for corporate IT/policy, I can sketch a more specific “what to do if X passes” contingency plan for you.

Further reading on these VPN‑ban proposalsTechRadarVPN usage at risk in Michigan under new proposed adult content law17 de set. de 2025TechRadarAge verification lands in Italy − here's how it affects VPN usershá 14 dias