A CORA modernization bill passed a Colorado Senate committee Thursday with lawmakers adding a provision that prohibits state agencies and local governments from requiring requesters to show identification to obtain public records.

The new language only affects records requested under the Colorado Open Records Act, not those requested of police departments and sheriff’s offices under the Colorado Criminal Justice Records Act (CCJRA).

Other provisions in Senate Bill 23-286 address “certain parts of CORA that do not match 2023 but unfortunately still look like perhaps the 1990s,” said Sen. Chris Hansen, the Denver Democrat who introduced the bill.

The measure requires records custodians to accept credit cards or electronic payments for records if they already take them for other products and services. It prohibits the charging of per-page fees for records provided in digital formats such as PDFs. It also changes the definition of “electronic mail” in CORA to “electronic communications” to encompass all forms of electronic communications, and it requires state agencies to keep electronic communications for at least the length of a proceeding (such as an investigation or a hearing) unless their records management programs require a longer retention period.