Boulder Sen. Judy Amabile has proposed several amendments to her data privacy bill that would loosen some restrictions on data-sharing ahead of a hearing Monday, Feb. 23.
The original legislation aimed to limit how police and other government agencies access and share people’s historical location data, which is currently collected through technologies such as automatic license plate readers, including Flock cameras.
There are more than 40 Flock cameras in Boulder that scan and document vehicles as they pass. But cities across the country have faced growing pushback over privacy concerns and reports of data being shared with ICE.
The first draft would have barred police from conducting warrantless searches of drivers’ historical data, except for location data collected in the previous 24 hours, and would have limited police and other agencies to storing no more than four days of location data — far less than Flock’s current 30-day retention window.
On Feb. 19, Amabile emailed stakeholders proposing amendments that would expand the warrantless-search exemption to 72 hours and again allow police to retain up to 30 days of location data.
Another amendment would allow data sharing among jurisdictions across Colorado, enabling police departments to conduct warrantless searches of each other’s location data without review or approval — a practice the first draft would have prohibited.