A ruling by the state’s highest court Monday means that the bulk of Colorado’s licensing database of law enforcement officers will remain confidential.

Affirming a 2023 appellate court opinion, the Colorado Supreme Court held that the Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) board, which maintains the statewide certification information, is a criminal justice agency whose records are subject to the Colorado Criminal Justice Records Act (CCJRA) rather than the Colorado Open Records Act (CORA).

That distinction allowed POST to deny requests for the database made by The Gazette and the Chicago-based Invisible Institute after conducting a balancing test of interests under CCJRA. If CORA instead had governed POST’s records, disclosure would have been subject to a provision in the statute entitling requesters to copies of public records in “sortable” and “searchable” formats minus any confidential fields of information.