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Committee hears broad surveillance bill SB71; sponsors seek drafting time and lay bill over
Summary
Senators heard competing testimony on Senate Bill 71 — a broader surveillance transparency and warrant bill that would limit facial‑recognition use and require public notice of new deployments. Sponsors requested more stakeholder drafting; the committee laid the bill over.
Senate Bill 71, a companion measure focused on broader surveillance safeguards, drew mixed testimony when introduced in the same Feb. 23 Senate Judiciary hearing. Sponsor Senator Zamora Wilson described SB71 as a transparency and limit bill: it would require retention caps for various camera systems, a warrant for facial‑recognition searches, mandatory public notice before deploying certain surveillance, and documented rules for out‑of‑state sharing.
Supporters — including the ACLU of Colorado, the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition and multiple civil‑liberties speakers — said the bill brings necessary guardrails to protect constitutional privacy and to eliminate informal or third‑party secondary uses of historical location data.
Opponents — including district attorneys, multiple police chiefs, sheriffs, Colorado Parks and Wildlife and first‑responder groups — warned that the proposed retention limits and public‑notice processes could impair investigations, complicate cross‑jurisdictional work and sweep non‑law‑enforcement operational data (parks, EMS, wildlife). Several witnesses asked for narrower statutory definitions and technical drafting.
Outcome: At the sponsor's request the committee laid SB71 over to permit amendments and additional stakeholder work.
