Last-day legislation modernizes Colorado access to electronic records

Newswire: May 10, 2017.

Dateline: Denver.

After wrangling with the issue for all of its current legislative session, Colorado’s General Assembly passed an electronic records bill on the final day of its regular session.

The measure, sponsored by state Sen. John Kefalas (D-Fort Collins) and state Rep. Dan Pabon (D-Denver) modifies the Colorado Open Records Act, or CORA, and grants Colorado residents access to government records in electronic forms.

The state law previously had not specified citizens’ rights to public records in their electronic formats.

The bill’s passage was fraught with concern over the release of, or access to, personal private information maintained by hospitals, universities, and the courts. Pabon’s final version sought to equalize access to records already stored in a searchable or sortable digital format to be provided in the same way to citizens.

The bill’s original language was widely opposed by hospitals, municipal government agencies, and the University of Colorado for the information that it could reveal. Pabon’s substitute bill, approved on Wednesday, was good enough for CU to drop its opposition.

Read the full story here.

(Cover image: Jason Masten/Freeimages.com)