From The Rocky Mountain Collegian (Fort Collins): As technology has rapidly developed in the 21st century, our society has adapted to the changes in how we can communicate and access information. However, public policy has yet to adapt effectively during this time to the same circumstances.

One area in particular in which government has yet to get up to speed is in transparency and the free flow of information. Specifically, I’m referring to the laws governing records requests from public organizations. In Colorado, record requests are regulated by the Colorado Open Records Act, which mandates access to most records of information and business communications of local and state entities.

The CORA plays an important role in the transparency of public institutions and giving anyone concerned with public affairs an avenue to request information from the state. However, the act itself is a little out-of-date.

Thankfully, one of our local representatives is taking action to attempt to update the law.  State Senator John Kefalas has proposed a bill to update the CORA to require that any public records that are available in digital form to an organization must be delivered that way to the party that requested the information. The update proposed by Kefalas is long overdue and is necessary to keep information flowing at the rapid rate we have become accustomed to in the digital age, as public entities are currently not required to provide information requested via CORA digitally, and have the ability to reject a CORA request if they have requested data available in a physical format.

However, while Senator Kefalas should certainly be applauded for his efforts to increase transparency, the proposed bill does not go far enough in optimizing the flow of information under CORA. You see, while Kefalas’ proposal updates the medium in which public records must be made available to requesting parties, it ignores the media over which CORA requests can be filed. In other words, the bill will mandate that one can expect to receive public records digitally, but it doesn’t mandate that one can expect to actually file their CORA digitally.

Visit The Rocky Mountain Collegian for more.