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Committee narrows school facial-recognition prohibition but preserves broad ban; SB 143 advances after amendments
Summary
Lawmakers debated amendments to SB 143, which would extend a prohibition on school facial-recognition technology while carving limited exceptions for already-implemented systems; after stakeholder negotiation the committee adopted technical amendments and advanced the bill 4-3 to the Committee of the Whole.
Senate Bill 143, a bill to continue and refine Colorado's prohibition on school-use facial-recognition technology, drew extended debate and multiple stakeholder-driven amendments before the Senate Education Committee advanced the measure to the Committee of the Whole by a 4-3 vote.
Sponsor Senator Lundeen described extensive outreach with stakeholders, including school districts and vendors, and said amendments represent good-faith changes requested by districts such as St. Vrain. Key adopted changes clarified when a district may enable facial-recognition features: (1) administrators or a court order must have an articulated reason to enable the technology, (2) a facial image for the person being sought must already be in the system before the technology is used, (3) the technology may be used until the individual is located (not only identified), and (4) the standard for enabling the system was changed from "suspicion" to "belief" in one amendment at a local district's request.
Supporters argued the exceptions allow districts to use the technology in limited safety and custody-related circumstances and to locate missing students; opponents and several senators raised privacy concerns about collecting biometric data for minors, the risk of mission creep as AI develops, and the need to understand vendor capabilities. Senators expressed differing views on balancing student safety and biometric privacy. The committee adopted three stakeholder amendments during markup (amendments 2, 9 and 8 as designated in committee discussion), then moved the bill forward.
The committee recorded a roll-call vote that resulted in 4 ayes and 3 no votes. The chair indicated the bill was being forwarded to the Committee of the Whole for further consideration and likely more stakeholder engagement.
