EPIC, CFA, Fairplay Submit Recommendations Ahead of Potential Rulemaking for Colorado Automated Decision-Making and Chatbot Laws

EPIC, the Consumer Federation of America, and Fairplay submitted comments on Monday in response to the Colorado Department of Law’s request for stakeholder input ahead of potential rulemaking for the state’s recently passed bills on chatbot safety and automated decision-making technology (ADMT) in consequential decisions.   

ADMTs and chatbots both introduce new vectors of risk for Coloradans that often occur behind the shadow of the corporate “black box.” But as our comments explain, with strong, consumer-minded rulemaking, the Department can better protect Coloradans by closing some of the loopholes in the legislative text. 

For the ADMT bill, EPIC, CFA, and Fairplay recommended that the Department use the rulemaking process to: 

• broaden the scope of “consequential decision;” 
• clarify what qualifies as an “adverse outcome;”  
• offer specific data disclosure guidance; 
• clarify the manner by which deployers must provide “clear and conspicuous” notice to consumers; 
• require risk assessments prior to ADMT deployment; and 
• clarify the limited scope of developers’ and deployers’ “right to cure” violations of law. 

Regarding the Chatbot Safety Act, we encouraged the Department to: 

• clarify and carefully tailor the scope of the bill’s exemptions to prevent companies from exempting themselves from the law; 
• institute a process to approve new, privacy-protective age determination tools in the future; 
• require meaningful safety reports to inform the public about how companies are moderating their chatbots and how people are using them; and 
• increase accountability and transparency into how companies are responding to serious risks to protect consumers without putting consumers’ personal information at risk. 

EPIC has been engaged in advocacy around Colorado’s law on automated decision-making technologies since its original passage in 2024. EPIC, CFA, and Fairplay have all been calling for strong chatbot regulations across the country and collaborated to develop the People-First Chatbot Bill, which was recently introduced in Congress.