EPIC Urges Colorado Lawmakers to Retain Protections for Coloradans in Landmark AI Law  

The Colorado Legislature is in the midst of a special session, and lawmakers are revisiting the landmark Colorado AI Act. The Colorado AI Act provides important protections for Coloradans when companies use algorithmic decision systems in making decisions about their education, employment, housing, health care, and other important life activities. This special session will determine how many of these protections will be retained.  

In 2024, the Legislature passed the Colorado AI Act, which places transparency and impact assessment requirements on the developers and deployers of algorithmic decision systems and gives rights to Coloradans who are the subject of decisions in which these systems are used. Governor Jared Polis signed the law, and it is scheduled to go into effect in February 2026. 

However, there have been intense lobbying efforts to repeal or delay this law since its passage. Gov. Polis himself, after signing it into law, has criticized it and called the special session in part to urge lawmakers to revisit it. Several bills have been introduced to delay, repeal, or weaken the law, and two are still moving through the special session’s legislative process.  

Senate Majority Leader Robert Rodriguez, champion of the original law, has introduced SB 25B-004, or the AI Sunshine Act, that would pare the Colorado AI Act down to only the most important individual rights: to know when an algorithmic system is being used in a consequential decisions, to be given an explanation of how and why a decision was made, and to access and correct any inaccurate personal data used in the decision. This bill is the result of negotiations between public interest and labor groups and Colorado schools, hospitals, banks, and small businesses.  

The other bill under consideration, HB 25B-1008, would repeal the Colorado AI Act and replace it with language that provides no real protections because it merely reiterates existing law: businesses using AI to discriminate are still subject to the state’s non-discrimination laws, and businesses cannot lie to their customers about whether they use AI. This bill would strip away all the protections in the Colorado AI Act without doing anything to replace them with other rights for Coloradans or accountability mechanisms for companies using algorithms.  

EPIC Law Fellow Kara Williams testified in support of Sen. Rodriguez’s AI Sunshine Act in the Senate, and EPIC Senior Counsel Calli Schroeder testified against the competing bill, HB 25B-1008, in the House. 

EPIC has long advocated for laws that prioritize transparency, accountability, and human rights in the adoption of AI.