Colorado passed the Colorado Privacy Act (CPA) in 2021. It took effect July 1, 2023. Third state in the country to do it, after California and Virginia. It is one of the strongest consumer privacy laws on the books.
What the CPA Gives You
The CPA covers companies doing business in Colorado or targeting Colorado residents that process data on 100,000+ consumers per year, or 25,000+ if they profit from selling that data.
Your rights under the CPA: access, correction, deletion, data portability, and the right to opt out of targeted advertising, data sales, and profiling. The Colorado AG and district attorneys enforce it.
The real edge: Colorado requires companies to honor universal opt-out mechanisms. That means browser signals like Global Privacy Control work automatically on every site you visit. No submitting individual requests to each broker. One signal covers all of them.
Clearview AI Opt-Out
Colorado is one of six states where you can opt out of Clearview AI’s facial recognition database. Clearview scraped billions of photos to build a recognition system used by 3,000+ law enforcement agencies. If you live in Colorado, you can demand your faceprint gets removed. Most states do not have this right.
The Surveillance Landscape
License plate readers. Heavy ALPR deployment along the Front Range — Fort Collins through Pueblo. Flock Safety has contracts with multiple communities and HOAs. DeFlock.me, built by a Colorado-based advocate, has mapped 76,000+ readers nationwide and drives the pushback.
Facial recognition. Denver PD uses it. No statewide ban on government use.
Federal presence. Peterson, Schriever, Fort Carson, Buckley, NORAD. Large population of clearance holders with elevated privacy exposure.
What to Do
Enable Global Privacy Control. Use Brave or Firefox with GPC extensions. Colorado law forces companies to honor it. One setting, every site.
Submit deletion requests. Cite the CPA by name. Hit Spokeo, BeenVerified, WhitePages, Radaris, TruePeopleSearch, FastPeopleSearch first.
Opt out of Clearview AI. You have the right. Use it. Submit a formal request through their process.
Audit facial recognition databases. Clearview is not the only one. Check PimEyes, FaceCheck.ID, Google Lens, Yandex, TinEye. Opt out of each.
Map your ALPR exposure. Use DeFlock.me. Check plate lookup sites. Review connected car data sharing.
Kill ad tracking. iPhone: Settings > Privacy & Security > Tracking > off. Android: Settings > Privacy > Ads > Delete advertising ID.
Colorado gives you real tools. A law with teeth, universal opt-out support, Clearview eligibility, and a local advocacy community that built the surveillance-mapping tool the rest of the country depends on. Stop waiting for someone else to use them for you.
— J. Daniel, Dark Scrub