HB 25-1098

House Bill 25-1098, also known as the Automated Protection Order Victim Notification System, requires the Colorado Department of Public Safety to create a system that alerts victims and their families about protection orders through phone calls, emails, text messages, or mobile apps. This information will be available in both English and Spanish. The bill allows the department to work with outside companies to build this notification system but only if they have enough funding from grants, donations, or state funds for at least one year. Since it has been signed into law, the Department of Public Safety can now start setting up this system to help protect victims of abuse and violence by keeping them informed about relevant legal actions against their abusers.

Official Summary

The act requires the division of criminal justice in the department of public safety (division) to establish an automated protection order notification system (notification system) to provide a protected person, a protected person's immediate family, and other interested persons (registered users) with information related to a criminal or civil protection order. The notification system must disseminate specific information to registered users in English and Spanish through a telephone call, email, text message, or mobile phone application. The act authorizes the division to contract with a third-party entity to provide the functionality for the notification system. A public entity is immune from liability in any civil action based on its release of information or failure to release information related to the notification system. The act prohibits the division from establishing or operating the notification system until the division receives sufficient money to establish and operate the notification system for at least one year from gifts, grants, or donations, including federal funds, or money appropriated to the division from the Colorado crime victim services fund. (Note: This summary applies to this bill as enacted.)

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