Senate Business, Labor, & Technology [Apr 21, 2026]

Senator Jada. Houston. Here. Rich. Here. Henriksen. Here.

Good afternoon, Madam Chair, and that would just be me in person. I'm Casey Stokes, the Administrator of the Board of Assessment Appeals.

It is now. It is on. If I maybe lean a little closer, is that better?

My name is Casey Stokes and I am the administrator of the Board of Assessment Appeals.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. And we are being joined by video conference by six members of the Board of Assessment Appeals for whom we are seeking reappointment.

Thank you all for your time today considering the confirmation of our board members. I do have a few words by way of general introduction. Joining us today by video conference will be six of our current board members who are requesting to be reappointed to new terms. They are Diane DeVries, Jeb Marsh, Jess Ketchum, John DeRungs, Monty Mullins, and Valerie Bartel. A seventh board member, Claudia Crane, could not join us today due to a conflict, but we request her confirmation in absentia. As you know, the BAA is a nine-member board of licensed appraisers. They resolve taxpayer appeals from property valuation and classification decisions of county boards of equalization and county boards of county commissioners, and then much more rarely from exemption and state-assessed property decisions of the state property tax administrator. The BAA hears a very wide range of issues on appeal involving a variety of property types. In recent years, most of the appeals filed with the BAA have been for commercially classified property. But because many of those are settled or withdrawn, most of the appeals that go to hearing at the BAA, between 70 and 80 percent, are appeals filed by residential homeowners. Most often those homeowners are pro se, representing themselves without an attorney, and while a taxpayer wishing to appeal a county decision may instead appeal to district court or binding arbitration, the BAA is the forum most often chosen by pro se taxpayers. Compared to district court, we offer a lower cost, quicker, and more flexible avenue of appeal, as well as the opportunity to have a case resolved by subject matter experts. This efficient resolution of appeals continues even as the BAA continues to receive a high volume of appeals, around 2,000 in non-reassessment years, and now between 5,000 and 6,000 reliably in reassessment years. In each of the last three fiscal years, the Board has held over 200 evidentiary hearings per year and every case that goes to hearing is resolved with a full written decision containing findings of fact and conclusions of law So thanks to the dedication and diligence of this board including the members with us today taxpayers and counties continue to be well served by access to a fair and impartial hearing process. That is an important part of Colorado's overall property assessment system. That concludes my introduction, Madam Chair, and if it pleases the committee, The board members are prepared to individually share with you their qualifications and reason for seeking another term of service on the board.

I will go ahead and start. My name is Valerie Bartell. I was initially appointed to the Board of Assessment Appeals in 2020, and it has been a pleasure to serve on the board, helping to provide taxpayers a meaningful way to have their issues addressed and resolved. And so I'm kindly asking to be reappointed. Thank you so much for your service and your time here.

My name is Diane DeFreeze. I'm from the Wheat Ridge area. I've been with the board for several years. I was originally appointed back in 2001. And prior to that, I was the administrator of the Board of Assessment Appeals. I'm a licensed appraiser and I enjoy the board. I enjoy working with pro se taxpayers and helping them through the process. And I would ask that I be reappointed. Thank you.

Yes, ma'am.

Thank you.

Thank you for being here. Welcome, sir.

I think you might be muted, sir. Looks like he's having trouble.

We all understand that.

Welcome. Yes, that's great. Thank you. Sorry, Mr. Mullins, we can't hear you. If you figure it out and you pipe in, we'll recognize you.

That is Mr. Marsh. I can recognize him. Do we already do him? No. Mr. Marsh, welcome. And you can proceed.

Thank you.

Okay, is that everybody?

All right, wonderful. Thanks everybody for your service and your willingness to continue to serve and for being here today I sorry that there were technical difficulties it happens But being remote is also a little more convenient than having to travel on down to the Capitol especially from Pagosa and other places where you're from. So, members, are there any questions for the new or returning appointees? Okay, seeing none, you're off the hook. Senator Judah.

Okay, thank you. That is a proper motion. Ms. Chapman, please pull the committee.

Madam Chair. Yes. Congratulations, folks. Oh, they're all gone? Well, hello. congratulations your confirmation

for the consent calendar. Seeing no objection your confirmations will be placed on the Senate consent calendar. We'll see you on the floor.

Okay let's welcome forward please everyone involved with the Board of Real Estate Appraisers. Ms. Bartell, I can tell you are a worker bee.

I don't need to go stand down just yet. If you ever want something done, ask a busy person. All right, well, welcome back. Okay, please remind us your name and introduce yourselves and tell us about the appointments.

She brings eminent domain experience,

Okay, welcome, Ms. Chachas, if we could begin with you, please.

Okay, thank you again. All right, back to you, Ms. Bartell.

Okay, thank you both so very much for your time today. I hope the students are doing okay without their teacher. IN fez without Members of the committee, do you have questions for this panel? Okay, seeing none, you're off the hook, and thanks again for your time today and your willingness to serve. Mr. Vice Chair, Senator Henriksen.

Okay, thank you. That's a proper motion. Ms. Chapman, please pull the committee.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Yes. Congratulations. Your nominations pass unanimous.

No objection. These nominations will be placed on the Senate consent calendar. We'll see you on the floor. Okay. Next up, confirmations for the Statewide Internet Portal Authority. Okay, welcome. Please introduce yourself and tell us us about the nominee. Just on the table there, it's a little bit when it turns green. There you go.

Did you say Volheim?

Did you just change it recently?

All right. Okay. Thank you, Ms. Volheim. And welcome, Ms. Morrill. If you'd like to add to that, the committee is here. Welcome.

All right. Thank you so much. Members, are there questions for this witness? Okay. Seeing none.

Thank you so much. That's a proper motion. Ms. Chapman, please poll the committee.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Yes. Congratulations. That passes unanimously.

Seeing no objection, this nomination will be placed on the Senate consent calendar. Congratulations. All right. Welcome to the committee for the next panel, which is the Uninsured Employer Board. Okay, welcome, sir. Please introduce yourself, remind the committee who you represent today, and proceed with your, I guess, descriptions. Is our person online today or in the room? Okay, great. It's just on the table there. There's a little gray, teeny gray button. There you go.

Let's give him just a few more seconds. Okay. I have a feeling that he's going to be confirmed, so I don't read too much about it.

We may have switched places with the folks ahead of us Oh I see he was here before and had to leave No no I think he may have been waiting for the next Oh, I'm sorry.

I'll try. Just a few more seconds. Did the sergeant say they could open that door? Thank you. Is this the last board? We have the Underground Damage Prevention Safety Commission. It's okay. I would expect them to be online anyway. Yeah, that's whatever you wish. Yeah. No, I promise you. As long as it doesn't stop doing your good work. Yeah. It's wrong. Okay, folks, I accidentally called him ahead of the bigger panel in front of him, so it could be my fault that he's not online. But thank you for being here. Are there questions for the director at this time? Because I'm sure he could try to answer. We all got the packet on his background, and so we understand the qualifications and we're grateful for his willingness to serve. And if it's all right, we'll just go ahead and make a motion.

And just thank him for his patience and understanding.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you so much. That's a proper motion, Ms. Chapman.

Excused. Rich. Aye.

Congratulations. That vote passes unanimously. Mr. Vice

for a consent calendar. Okay. Seeing no objection, that appointment will be placed on the Senate consent calendar. All right. Sorry about that, folks. Now, could we please welcome everybody involved with the Underground Damage Prevention Safety Commission? Welcome. Okay, welcome. Who would like to begin today?

Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Wilson. Okay, so Mr. Anderson, if you'd like to add anything. Welcome.

Thank you so much. Mr. Schmidt, thank you for joining us from Gunnison. That's quite a drive. So we really appreciate you being here today.

Thank you. Pardon me. Thank you so much again for your time. Excuse me. Please go ahead. I'm sorry. Mr. Bernard.

All right. Thank you. Ms. Anderson.

Thank you. Thank you. And Ms. Bluff?

Thank you. Thank you so much everyone for your time today and are there any questions for any of the nominees? Okay, seeing none, just want to say thank you again for your time today but also for your willingness to serve and continue to serve for those of you who have been doing this before. And with that, Mr. Vice Chair.

That's a proper motion. Ms. Chapman, please poll the committee.

Aye.

Excused.

Aye.

Aye.

Yes. All right. That motion passes unanimously.

Seeing no objection, your nominations will be placed on the consent calendar for the Senate, and congratulations. See you on the floor. Take care everybody and have a safe travel back to Gunnison My goodness Long drive All right Okay, folks, thanks again for your patience. Sorry I screwed up the order of the confirmations there at the end. Next on the agenda is Senate Bill 160 followed by House Bill 1210 for whomever's in the room or online to testify. So we'll go ahead and welcome our sponsors. Just one moment, please. Thanks for bearing with us, everyone. The noise from the hall is a little much. We need to keep the door open or else it just gets too hot and stuffy in here. Believe me, if I could change the temperature, I would. It's a very old building. Okay. Welcome, senators. Who would like to begin? Mr. Majority Leader, Senator Rodriguez, welcome back to the BLT Committee. Great to have you here.

Thank you. Welcome, Senator Gonzalez.

to ensure compliance and in so doing creates consistency and predictability for everyone involved. To ensure that we are addressing a documented issue in meatpacking facilities. workers are being denied reasonable access to restrooms during their shifts.

And so I just... I'm going to have to ask the majority leader to leave the room. I don't know. Senator Gonzalez, do you want to say it for a third time?

Okay. Wow. All right. Thanks, folks. but in seriousness, did you have anything to...

Twice.

There you go. Okay.

All right, great. Thank you both. Members, are there questions? Senator Liston.

Mr. Majority Leader.

Senator Gonzalez.

Further questions for the sponsors? Okay seeing none we'll go ahead and open it up for witness testimony. Thank you. Thanks for your patience folks. We're just trying to connect with the people who are supposed to testify in line, make sure that they accept the invitation and so we can bring them forward. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, thank you so much for being here. Mr. Moises? Moises. Moises, sorry about that. Mr. Moises, welcome. Please begin by introducing yourself and proceed with your two minutes of testimony. Welcome. Thank you. Madam Chair is a member of the committee. my name is

Thank you, Mr. Moyes, for being here today. Did we ever get our online folks set up? Okay, we have one witness ready to go online. Welcome. If you could please introduce yourself and remind the committee who you represent today, begin with your two minutes. And please keep your eye on the timer there. It'll go to yellow and then start blinking.

Thank you Welcome Okay Madam Chair and members of the committee I appreciate the opportunity to testify in support of the bill I Debbie Berkowitz currently a fellow at Georgetown University the former chief of staff at Federal OSHA and I run health and safety programs for nonprofits and unions that represent meatpacking workers for almost 30 years

Thank you so much for your time. We can bring forward the other proponents online or in the room.

Thank you so much, Mr. Schechter. and thank you all for being here. Members, are there questions for this panel? Senator Liston. Thank you, Madam Chair, and sir, thank you all for being here. Sir, I just wanted to address to you, you might understand it better, under Section 2 of this bill about the policy of, you know, the personal protection equipment and gear. is there any type of responsibility for the employee or you understand where I'm coming from or the employer?

Mr. Schechter.

Okay, I'm just looking for some clarification. Thank you very much. No further questions for this panel? Oh, it looks like we were perhaps joined by one more witness. Ms. Rodarte, are you online? Are you able to click? Yes All right Are you just going to be audio today or video two Just audio All right Well welcome And please continue with your Please introduce yourself, remind the committee who you represent today and proceed with your two minutes.

Thank you so much for your time today. All right. Is there any? Are there any? Did you? Okay. It looks like one of the people who couldn't join is, I'm going to allow for Claire to, Ms. Poundstone to read the testimony so we have one more witness who, folks, thanks for bearing with us again. We just, folks have trouble logging in. so please proceed and just remind the committee who this person is and try to keep it to two minutes welcome thank you madam chair members of the committee my

Thank you for your time and please let them know that we heard their testimony. Okay, folks, last call for questions for the witnesses for today. Okay, seeing none, are there any other witnesses who wish to testify on Senate Bill 160? Online? Okay, we'll close the witness testimony phase. Welcome back, sponsors. Do you have any amendments for us? Members, do you have any amendments for Senate Bill 160? Seeing none, we'll close the amendment phase. Sponsors, any wrap-up comments? Senator Rodriguez, Mr. Majority Leader.

Senator Gonzalez.

Okay, seeing no further comments, Mr. Vice Chair, Senator Henriksen.

That is a proper motion. Ms. Chapman, please poll the committee.

Congratulations. That passes unanimously. Senator Henrickson. Madam Chair, I recommend consent calendar. Seeing no objection, Senate Bill 160 will be placed on the Senate consent calendar. Thank you, committee. All right, folks. We'll give the sponsors of the next measure a moment to settle. Thank you. Thank you. All right. We will go ahead and kick off for House Bill 1210. Senator Weissman.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

And that was at a time where we didn't have surveillance pricing or we didn't have wage setting. And algorithms were not a part of planning for your family's future. But as small business owners, we did what we thought was fair. and because of that our customers came back but that's not what we're seeing today and we are seeing this predatory practice happening more and more our phones have become an extension of who we are all of our information our most personal data our searches our messages our locations these companies are collecting this data to use against us and decide how much to charge each of us individually, whether it's for a plane ticket, for groceries, for medicine when your kid is sick. I can't tell you how many times I've had to make an emergency order on Pampers or fever medication for my child, but that also signates to the algorithm that, yes, she's in desperate need of this, so it is okay for us to hike that cost a little bit. usually things are based on supply and demand but this algorithm algorithm is weaponizing things based on what you will personally be willing to pay based on that desperation if you will and that's what we're talking about today is surveillance pricing and wage setting and let's be clear about what makes this different different businesses have always adjusted prices based on market conditions, just out of how I had mentioned earlier with my own family business. And that's normal. That's what's expected. But this is not that. This is pricing or paying you wages based on your behavior, your circumstances, even your moments of vulnerability. One example I heard was an individual needing to buy a ticket to a funeral. And so the constant search of trying to find an affordable plane ticket made it obvious to the algorithm that this person really needed to buy a plane ticket and that they were willing to pay whatever it took. The same thing goes for our workers. Paying our workers less because of an algorithm predicts that they'll accept it, sometimes out of desperation. In one study, rideshare drivers sitting in the same room at same time were offered different pay for the exact same rides 63% of the time. There's no transparency, no accountability, and no way for consumers or workers to know what's happening behind the curtain. And this isn't just a consumer issue. It's a small business issue as well. Local businesses don't have access to massive troves of personal data. They can't compete with corporations that can fine-tune prices for every individual customer. That tilts the playing field and accelerates consolidation in our economy. me. To my co-prime's point, we represent one of the most diverse cities in America, and that makes up a lot of entrepreneurs and small businesses who fall into this category that cannot simply compete. So this bill is very straightforward. It draws a line. It says that you cannot, sorry, it says that you can still have dynamic pricing. You can still offer discounts. You can still respond to supply and demand, but you cannot use a person's private surveillance data to secretly decide maximum prices that they'll pay or the minimum wage that they'll accept. Because at the end of the day, this is about fairness. It's about transparency, and it's about making sure that in a modern economy, we don't lose the basic principles that prices should be consistent, understandable, and grounded in fair market. Because if we don't act now, this practice will only grow and it will become harder and harder to unwind. And this bill puts Colorado on the right side of that line. And I'm going to hand it over back to my co-prime, Madam Chair, if that's okay. Okay, Senator Reisman. Thanks, Madam Chair. Just to build a little bit on some of what my colleague from Aurora said, I know that members of the committee have been interested in examples. Well, what are we really talking about here in practice? And then we'll get into the bill. Here are a few of them. So this is from a publication from an organization called Consumer Watchdog dated December 2024. I'll just give a few brief excerpts here. Target charged people $100 more for a TV when they were in a Target parking lot versus in another location. Orbitz, the travel company, learned that Macintosh users spend more money to stay at hotels and charge them more than non-Macintosh users. Yes, the Internet can sniff out the type of device that you're accessing it from. Over at Amazon, prices change 2.5 million times a day, meaning the average cost of a product changes about every 10 minutes. A Yale study found personalized pricing increased profits for airlines 4 to 5%. Uber reportedly charged different prices based on whether the customer used a corporate credit card or a personal one. Farmers Insurance overcharged its longtime California customers 4% to 13% because the company judged them unlikely to shop around. Princeton Review Test Prep charged customers shopping online from zip codes that contained a higher number of Asians more money, according to ProPublica. Editorial comment, gross. Staples.com charged people more for the same stapler if they knew a person had fewer options, such as being near a competitor, according to the Wall Street Journal. I'm only naming these particular entities because this is what the report does. Lastly, you may have heard, you may hear later today, oh, but this should be allowed because it's good for the consumer. Further on in this report McKinsey the consultancy take on surveillance pricing Our experience shows that such transformations little euphemism there when done well can enhance pricing to generate two to seven percentage points of sustained margin improvement with initial benefits in as little as three to six months. You don't hire McKinsey if you're the neighborhood small business. You don't hire McKinsey cheap either. You hire them if you have a lot of resources and you're looking to generate more. look the point of a business especially a publicly traded one is to generate returns for the owners of that business whether that's a couple of member llc or a large publicly traded corporation that's not inherently good or bad it's just what a business is but if a business is spending millions of dollars to develop these algorithms and methodologies it is not out of the goodness of their hearts. It is a business decision to maximize their revenues. And what we are here to say with this bill is that's a particular business decision because it is so invasive of the private data and realities of our constituents should not be allowed. But having given some examples, you know, if you lay them against the bill as heavily amended in the House, some of the things as I just mentioned, with the definitions in the bill, would indeed not be allowed. Frankly, some, depending on how people were doing it, might be because of these significant amendments that we did in the House. As you'll see, all of the font is gray shade. That means the whole thing was a strike below in the House. Just to walk members through a couple of key points, there are two of the important definitions. Page three, individualized price setting. You'll see it's very brief. That's 4A. And then 4B. We go on to say a number of things that that is not. By analogy, top of page four, individualized wage setting, short definition. Then we have a number of exceptions to what that is not. That's 5B. We provide the definition of price or wage setting algorithm. That's 11. Number 11 on page 5. That is going to take in some of the other definitions. getting into the substantive part of the bill, same basic architecture. Page six, a person shall not engage in individualized price setting. But then we provide a lot of exceptions to what is still allowed. And frankly, these exceptions probably cover a lot of what you may have heard up to this point. It might even cover some of what you'll hear today. and then likewise we provide that a person shall not engage in individualized wage setting. That's the top of page nine. And then again we have some example or exceptions from that. And in both cases there's a simple transparency provision. So the bill reflects a lot of I think very artful work in the House to laser in on what it is that we are trying to proscribe and allow, continue to allow. a lot of common practices in the market by which people compete in a reasonable and fair and non-abusive way for business. And we'd be happy to take questions. Community members, questions for sponsors? All right, seeing none, we'll go to witness testimony. On the first panel I have Nina DeSalvo Vincent Lee Karim Sawadogo Anaya Robinson and Tom McBrien We will start I think with in so we go Ms DeSalvo Thank you, Mr. Vice Chair and members of the committee. My name is Nina DeSalvo. I'm the policy director and an attorney with Towards Justice, a nonprofit law firm dedicated to fair markets and workplace equity. We strongly support House Bill 1210. At the heart of surveillance price and wage setting is a simple but serious problem. Individualization disconnects prices and wages from value. What you pay for a product stops reflecting what it costs to make or sell and starts reflecting how badly you need it. What you earn stops reflecting the value of your work and starts reflecting how little you'd accept. That means the vast troves of data companies collect about us and the inferences algorithms draw from that data are really maps of our vulnerability. And vulnerability too often tracks race, gender, and other protected characteristics. These algorithms don't just reflect existing inequities, they deepen them. Our laws should help root out injustice, not allow technology to perpetuate it. Meanwhile, these practices are spreading fast. Surveillance wage setting has moved well beyond ride share and delivery apps into health care, retail, and customer service. Some employers are now completely open about it, running online auctions where workers bid against each other for shifts with the lowest wage winning. Surveillance pricing is following the same trajectory, and it's reshaping competition in ways that hurt Colorado's small businesses. Local retailers don't have the data infrastructure or the appetite to surveil their customers. But surveillance pricing is enormously profitable, and businesses that can't or won't play the game increasingly can't compete with the megacorporations that will. It doesn't have to be this way. Colorado can protect our state's workers, consumers, and small businesses by passing House Bill 1210. Thank you. Mr. Robinson. Thank you, Mr. Chair and committee members. My name is Anaya Robinson. I'm the Public Policy Director with the ACLU of Colorado here today in support of House Bill 1210. This bill addresses a growing practice where companies use vast amounts of surveillance data, everything from browsing behavior to inferred personal characteristics to determine how much someone pays for a product or how little a worker might accept in wages. While these systems are often marketed as innovative or efficient in practice, they replicate and deepen existing inequalities. When algorithms learn from historical data, they often reproduce patterns of discrimination. Communities that have historically faced economic exclusion become the very populations that automated systems identify as able to be charged more or paid less. In other words, surveillance pricing and wage setting can turn inequality into a business model. Imagine two people purchasing the same product online. One lives in a wealthier zip code and pays one price. Another lives in a lower-income neighborhood or rural area and is algorithmically identified as having fewer alternatives or less bargaining power and pays more. The same dynamic can occur in the labor market, where workers' race, behavior, or location data is used to determine the lowest wage they might accept. These systems operate invisibly. Consumers and workers often never know they are being profiled or that the price or wage offered to them was shaped by intimate personal data. House Bill 1210 establishes an important guardrail. It prevents companies from using surveillance data and automated decision systems to individually tailor prices or wages in ways that exploit personal information Colorado has long recognized that markets function best when rules prevent discrimination and protect fairness Allowing opaque algorithmic systems to quietly determine who pays more or earns less undermines both economic opportunity and public trust. House Bill 1210 helps ensure that innovation in our economy does not come at the expense of equity, dignity, and economic security for Colorado workers and consumers. The ASEALIO of Colorado asks you to vote yes on House Bill 1210. Thank you. Thank you. And Mr. Sawadogo? My name is Karim Sawadogo. I'm a driver in Colorado and also a member of Colorado Independent Drivers United. I'm here today to ask your support for HB 1210 to prohibit surveillance price and wage setting. It makes me so proud to be part of the campaign to advocate to equal pay, equal work. And that is what we are asking for with this bill, that Uber pay us based on the value of our work, not based on who we are, what we look like, or whether we have ever overdraft on our bank account. We know Uber is using some kind of price and waste setting algorithm to set up driver's pay and how much rider pay. I participated in a study group by CU Boulder researcher with diverse drivers group, black, Latino, immigrant, and white. Where all sat together with our ride share app opened, our phone set out on the same table, ride offer began to come in. And every single driver got different fare offer for the same ride, same destination. We cannot know how the algorithm decides who to offer more or less. but we know that the fair amount offered is not related simply to the value of the ride, but there's something individual about us that feels really creepy. Separately, I signed up for the new Uber Pro Card debit card and bank account. That soon seems like there's a new way to control our finance. For example, one time my account was overdraft and a loan was offered to pay for it. Soon after that, Uber started sending me the lowest fare I had seen in a while. And Mr. Sardolo, you are over time, so please go ahead and wrap up. Oh, sorry. Because when you need more, this is terrible. Desperate drivers should not be penalized by an algorithm for being poor. Thank you for your time and thank you for your support for SB 1210 to ban surveillance pricing and waste setting and return equal pay for equal work to ride share drivers. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. McBrien. Thank you, Chair Danielson, Vice Chair Henriksen, and the members of this committee for the opportunity to testify today in support of House Bill 1210. My name is Tom McClendon. Brian, I'm counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center, or EPIC. EPIC is an independent nonprofit founded over 30 years ago to secure the fundamental right to privacy in the digital age. EPIC supports this bill because Coloradans' personal data should not be used to exploit them in any context, but especially with regards to the prices they pay and the wages they earn in the midst of an affordability crisis. I was going to describe surveillance pricing and wage setting to you all, but the bill's sponsors and my co-panelists have done that admirably. So instead, I'd like to focus on another aspect of this bill that is crucially important, how it treats discounts and loyalty programs. This bill protects people from abusive surveillance pricing without eliminating discounts that actually benefit consumers. The bill was obviously very carefully written to avoid prohibiting the discount and loyalty programs that consumers enjoy and actually benefit from, such as programs for veterans, low-income people, dissatisfied customers, to name just a few. The key is that these discounts and loyalty programs provide bona fide beneficial price floors that are transparent and offered on equal terms to all who qualify. companies have been able to offer discounts and loyalty rewards like these for decades without individualizing them based on personal data companies that push for exemptions for opaque individualized discounting and loyalty rewards are often pushing for the ability to conduct surveillance pricing by another name surveillance pricing can be easily labeled a discount when a company simply raises the base price of the good for all consumers luckily this bill strikes the proper balance. Coloradans reasonably expect to pay the same price as their neighbors for products and to receive fair pay for their work, not to have their personal data exploited to more efficiently empty their wallets. For all these reasons, EPIC urges the committee to advance this bill. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Lee. Good afternoon, Chair, members of the committee. My name is Vincent Lee, Vice President of AI Policy at Tech Equity Action here in strong support of House Bill 1210. We support because consumers are getting nickel and dimed everywhere, and they're looking for help. For example, grocery prices are up nearly 30% since the pandemic. Supply chains have recovered, but prices have stayed persistently high. That's because there's now less competition across many markets, and companies realize they could just keep higher prices in place, and surveillance pricing is one of the tools that lets them do that. With surveillance pricing, companies can use data collection, price optimization to identify our willingness to pay, our price sensitivity, and modify the price based on that data. This is a return to the world before the price tag, which was actually invented in 1874 by a Quaker who believed charging different people different prices for the same thing was immoral. I still think it is. Before the price tag, we were forced to haggle with store owners and those with less time or leverage, you know, woman, the elderly, the rushed, paid more. Surveillance pricing revives this dynamic, except the store has complete data profile on you, your price sensitivity, and you can't negotiate. And we need legislation to stop us from moving backwards to the 1800s. One common ask we've seen on similar bills in other states is to only focus on personalized price increases. However, companies could easily exploit this by raising prices and characterizing the use of personal data to set prices as a discount to avoid any restrictions. In fact that what hotel websites said they did when they charged people in certain states more a night for the exact same hotel room I anticipate you hear that these tools are needed to offer discounts This bill accounts for that Discounts that companies are willing to be transparent about and publicly disclose are preserved You know group discounts discounts for teachers, veterans, two-for-one specials, those are all allowed. What this bill targets is different. Using personal data to identify the maximum we'll pay and charging them that. I'm out of time, so I just ask for your support on this important bill. Thank you. Thank you. Committee members, questions for this panel? Seeing none, we'll go ahead and retire this panel. Thank you for being here. Next, I have Mr. M. Brogy, Allison Morgan, Rebecca Hernandez, and Parker White. All in person. And we'll go ahead and start here and work our way down. If you want to introduce yourself as you go and give your testimony, that'd be great. Great. Chair and members of the committee, my name is Rebecca Hernandez, and I'm here today on behalf of the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce, representing more than 1,200 businesses and tens of thousands of Coloradans they employ across the state. We are firmly opposed to House Bill 1210, and I want to be direct about why. This bill will have dangerous, sweeping consequences for the entire Colorado business community, consequences that go far beyond anything this committee has been led to believe. We are not here today to defend bad actors. We agree Coloradans deserve protection from genuinely harmful uses of personal data, but this bill doesn't draw that line. It bans data-driven decision-making wholesale, including personalized coupons, prescription discounts, gig worker bonuses for serving rural communities, and workforce tools that businesses across this state rely on every day to serve their customers and their workers. If the goal of this legislation is to target bad actors, this bill misses the mark and punishes Colorado's mom-and-pop shops attempting to stay competitive against big box chains. A new poll conducted by the Chamber of Commerce found that 70% of Colorado voters oppose banning loyalty programs, personalized coupons, student pricing, even if they use algorithms. 70%. The people this bill claims to protect don't want it. Recently adopted amendments do not fix the bill's core problems, and the definition of surveillance data is still sweeping. Colorado has been down this road before. We are still trying to fix Senate Bill 205, our AI law, years after it passed because the unintended consequences weren't fully understood before the bill became law. We cannot afford to repeat that mistake here and no amount of amendments is going to make House Bill 1210 a workable bill for the business community. I implore you today to get the policy right before it becomes law, not after. And I respectfully ask for a no vote on House Bill 1210. Mr. White. Thank you, Mr. Chair, members of the committee. My name is Parker White. I am the director of the Colorado Competitive Council, and C3 is in opposition to House Bill 26-12-10. If the bill were narrowly focused on preventing true algorithmic discrimination against individuals based on protected characteristics like race, gender, or disability, there would likely be broad agreement. Unfortunately even after the amendments in the House the bill still goes well beyond that goal and creates significant unintended consequences for consumers and businesses alike The bill continues to prohibit common pro practices that help Colorado families save money In short, this bill would be devastating to modern marketing practices. When a grocery store sends a diaper coupon to a household with a baby, that's a consumer benefit. When an online retailer offers a discount after you leave items in your cart, that helps consumers complete purchases they might otherwise abandon. And when a subscription service offers a reduced price to bring back a former customer, that's standard competitive marketing. Each of these practices benefit consumers and businesses engaging them to build customer loyalty, build brands, and expand customer bases. I'm not a consumer advocate, as you guys well know. as you might say, Parker, if this is so bad for consumers, why are you here on behalf of the business community opposing it? Modern marketing practices are good for consumers because they drive prices down, but they are equally good for businesses because they drive sales volumes up. This bill would turn a win-win situation into a lose-lose. By depriving businesses of their ability to tailor marketing campaigns towards their customers, consumers will see prices go up and businesses will see a corresponding decrease in sales volume. Colorado families benefit from discounts, loyalty programs, and tailored offers every day. House Bill 26-12-10 risks eliminating many of those benefits while creating uncertainty for businesses trying to serve their customers. For those reasons, we respectfully ask the committee to oppose House Bill 26-12-10. Thank you. Thank you. Ms. Morgan. Thank you. Chair, members of the committee, Allison Morgan with Colorado Bankers Association in an opposed position on House Bill 1210. Our members shared the legislature's commitment to fairness, transparency, and consumer protection, but I'd like to be absolutely clear, 26-12-10 as drafted and re-engrossed would severely restrict access to credit in Colorado and undermined years of progress in expanding safe and affordable lending, especially to underserved communities. The bill's definition of surveillance data is extremely broad, as you've heard from other witnesses, and so I won't go into greater detail on that. But banks increasingly use modern data analytics to responsibly serve consumers with what we would call thin or no credit files. Those would be young adults or low-income households who may not have long credit histories. Under this bill, many of those tools would be prohibited if they are considered a substantial factor in pricing, even when they improve the accuracy and expand access to credit. We appreciate the sponsors listening to parts of our concerns on the bill, and the bill does preserve the traditional credit bureau data, but that alone is not enough for the millions of consumers who lack robust credit histories. Because the bill treats many of these inputs as surveillance data, lenders may be forced to stop using them, resulting in fewer approvals and higher prices for those with limited credit ratings or credit records, rather. For those reasons, we are asking for a no vote on House Bill 1210. All right. Thank you. Mr. Ambroji. Thank you committee members for the opportunity to testify Thank you My name is Drew Ambrogi with Chamber of Progress a center-left tech trade association in opposition to HB 1210. We share the legislature's concerned about affordability, but we are concerned about the impacts this bill will have on consumers and on market competition. As my co-panelists have explained, the primary way retailers at online platforms are using data-driven pricing is to compete for your business. You've heard the examples, the kinds of discounts this bill would take away. Colorado voters do not want these practices banned or restricted. Polling we did just this month with Morning Consult found that 70% of Colorado adults oppose banning personalized discounts and loyalty rewards if they require algorithms to function. This opposition was bipartisan. When asked who would be hurt most by this ban, voters pointed to shoppers on tight budgets, families with children and seniors. These Colorado voters are right to worry because HB 1210 bans the entire practice of data-driven pricing and then tries to carve out a narrow set of condoned discounting practices. But it's extremely difficult to capture the full range of pro-consumer practices that modern businesses use. For example, 80% of Colorado shoppers participate in loyalty programs, Yet the bill's exception only protects discounts offered on equal terms to every member. That's not how modern loyalty programs work. The bill would prohibit a bonus coupon for a product you actually buy, a free drink for a lapsed customer, or points tailored to how you shop. Each carve-out tries to preserve the surface of the practice while stripping out the mechanism that makes it viable. And voters understand the consequences. 77% expect that if stores had to offer discounts uniformly to every customer, as this bill requires, they would offer fewer discounts or stop offering them altogether. I'll wrap up by saying that HB 1210 addresses a speculative harm by eliminating valuable discounts that Colorado families rely on and banning a core way that modern businesses compete. That is not a tradeoff that Colorado voters are asking this committee to make. I respectfully urge you to oppose the bill. Thank you for your time. Committee members, questions for this panel? Seeing none, we'll go ahead and retire the panel. Thank you for being here. Next we will go to Katie Wolf and Megan Dollar. And online, Brittany Moore Saunders and Jeffrey Thormansgard. So we'll go in person first. Ms. Wolfe, go ahead and kick us off. Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee. My name is Katie Wolfe, and I'm here today on behalf of the Colorado Retail Council. The Colorado Retail Council represents retailers across the state, including grocery stores, pharmacies, convenience stores, online retailers, and nationally and locally owned businesses that serve millions of Colorado consumers every day. We are here today in opposition to House Bill 1210. Our members share the goal of building consumer trust and data privacy, but House Bill 1210 would penalize three categories of standard consumer-friendly retail operations. Loyalty programs, electronic shelf labels, and the data analytics that allow retailers to offer competitive prices. We want to be specific about what that means for the Colorado retail community. The bill's sponsors and supporting organizations have made attempts to make sure that loyalty programs are protected. And the re-engrossed bill does include a safe harbor for discounts offered through loyalty and reward programs. But the protection is conditional. It only applies if the discount is one that any consumer could potentially obtain. That qualifier creates a serious problem for how loyalty programs actually work. Our members operate loyalty programs that use consensually obtained purchase history data, browsing behavior, and app interaction data, all of which falls within the bill's definition of surveillance data. to deliver personalized offers, targeted coupons, and member exclusive pricing. These are not secret or predatory. They are the reasons consumers download retailers' apps and sign up for membership programs in the first place. A loyalty program that sends a member coupon for the product that they regularly buy is using the exact kind of behavioral data this bill targets. Under the bill's framework, there is genuinely concerned additional uncertainty that would prohibit individualized price setting. This does not resolve any uncertainty and in the absence of clarity, litigation is at real risk. Additionally, electronic shelf labels that allow for retailers to rapidly update prices and are becoming the standard would be eliminated and potentially face legal risks. Finally, the bill requires any person using the bill's definition of surveillance data develop publicly published the procedures governing how algorithms work and what data it considers. This is a competitively devastating requirement. Publishing proprietary pricing methodology is not transparency, it is handling a strategic roadmap to competitors. The Colorado retail council does not oppose the goal of protecting consumers from generally predatory personalization but House Bill 1210 threatens loyalty programs that consumers value creates liability for electronic shelf labels that improve pricing accuracy and imposes A publication requirement that harms Colorado businesses of all sizes. Thank you for your time and consideration. Thank you. Ms. Dower. Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee. My name is Megan Dower, and I'm the Senior Vice President of Government Affairs and Political Operations for the Colorado Chamber of Commerce. We are here to respectfully oppose House Bill 26-12-10. This position was taken by our technology alliance made up of experts in this area. I'll try not to repeat too much of what's already been said. I'll just speak a little bit more broadly. But as we read the bill in its current form, we believe the definitions are still very broad and vague. We're concerned that it could potentially capture routine business tools such as website analytics, productivity metrics, and software. For businesses, this will create significant compliance challenges and legal uncertainty, which would expose employers to heightened litigation risk for common practices that they do. We also believe this bill will lead to economic consequences. By creating liability around routine uses of data, we believe it will discourage innovation and investment in Colorado. Finally, House Bill 26-1210 establishes that these violations are deceptive trade practice, which again continues the state down the road of adding more legal liability for our businesses here in the state. With that, we would ask for your NOVA. Thank you very much. I'm happy to answer any questions. Thank you. We'll go online to Ms. Morris-Saunders.

Thank you. Ms. Stormitsgaard.

All right. Thank you. Committee members, questions for this panel. Senator Liston.

Ms. Wolfe.

Senator Liston.

Oh, gosh. I wish I had it up in front of me. I believe that was amended out in the House. But there is still legal liability under the Consumer Protection Act.

Okay, thank you. And then you were referring, I know you represent large businesses, medium and small businesses, particularly on small businesses. What are you hearing from the small businesses that are trying to compete with larger ones? Are they under this, are they going to effectively be able to compete or not? or will it just take one or two complaints to a small business and they'll say, I'm done. We're not going to offer discounts or coupons. I don't know.

And, Mr. Chair, one last question?

Thank you. So, Ms. Dollar, or Mr. Thormisgaard, is he still on?

He is.

I don't see him.

i'm not entirely sure that i can quantify that absent sort of um polling our members but i can tell you right now, the added administrative burden that would be brought into the businesses themselves is sort of an unquantified expense that I think would probably add quite a bit of expense to a small business, sir. But I would probably need to get back to you on that specific fiscal impact, sir, but I could do that. Very good. Ms. Dollar, do you have any

Like I say, there's no fiscal note to the state, but it seems to me that we're placing certainly some financial obligations on businesses.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I don't have specific information. I'm happy to kind of gather that from individual members. I do think that there will be a fiscal impact, and this is thus the economic impacts, the general economic impacts that we believe will happen if this bill is passed.

Say that again.

Ms. Wolfe. Thank you, Mr. Chair. As far as I understand your question, I think that what our concern is, is that if we do not offer the exact same discount to every person, which would not be helpful to folks because then you'd have to cipher through however many discounts you have on products that you may or may not purchase, we believe that our loyalty programs would be in violation still of the definitions in the bill. Even though it's on equal terms, it would not provide an equal opportunity for the discount at the exact moment for everyone.

That is what our members have told us, that the concerns remain in that area.

mr chair members of the committee thank you for the opportunity to testify in opposition to House Bill 1210. My name is Andrew Wood, and I'm the Executive Director for TechNet Central Region. TechNet is the national bipartisan network of technology CEOs and senior executives that promotes the growth in the innovation economy. We share the goal of protecting consumers from harmful pricing practices, but it's equally important that the policy in this space preserves innovation and the pro-consumer tools that lower costs, because getting that balance wrong can reduce access to discounts that help Colorado consumers save money. First, the bill's definitions remain overly broad and capture common uses of data that power consumer discounts. As a result, practices like personalized promotions and targeted savings risk being treated the same as harmful conduct that the bill is intended to address. Second, the exemptions remain too narrow. Many consumer-benefiting practices like proactive discounts, win-back offers, and personalized promotions based on purchase history fall outside of the bill's current exemptions. These are widely used tools that help consumers, especially those on tight budgets, access lower prices. Unfortunately, the result of this bill would mean fewer discounts, fewer offers, and higher costs for consumers. Finally, this is a rapidly evolving policy area, and no state has yet adopted a framework as broad as House Bill 1210. Many states are still studying the issue or pursuing narrower approaches that focus on disclosure and transparency. moving ahead with an untested sweeping prohibition like House Bill 1210, risk making Colorado an outlier. For these reasons, TechNet respectfully urges a no vote. Thank you.

Thank you. Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and members of the committee. My name is Christine Jensen, and I serve as the vice chair of the Legislative and Regulatory Affairs Committee of the Colorado Mortgage Lenders Association. The CMLA is a trade association whose membership is comprised of over 170 member companies and includes mortgage bankers, mortgage brokers, licensed mortgage loan originators, banks and credit unions located throughout the state of Colorado. Our members employ over 1 individuals and account for the majority of residential real estate lending in the state I here before you today to express concerns about House Bill 26 We echo the comments previously made by the Colorado Bankers Association. The CMLA appreciates the intent of House Bill 26-12-10, which aims to stop businesses from using surveillance data to set individual prices and wages. The concern for us, however, is scope. As drafted, the definitions of surveillance data and individualized are broad enough that traditional mortgage risk-based pricing and pool default modeling could be mischaracterized as surveillance-based, even when lenders are using standard loan application data and consumer reports. Mortgage lending is not a simple approve or deny decision. Most compliance risk arises from pricing in terms, not denials. The current credit-related carve-out in the bill addresses a refusal to extend credit based on a consumer report, but it does not clearly protect risk-based pricing practices that rely on credit data and loan characteristics. This ambiguity matters because the bill treats a violation as a deceptive trade practice and allows enforcement and civil penalties per violation and per transaction, which increases litigation risk if regulated mortgage practices are left in a gray zone. We're not asking to weaken the bill. We're asking for technical clarification to, number one, exclude mortgage loan application and loan level underwriting data, consumer report data, and actuarial pool performance analysis from the term surveillance data. Confirm that risk-based pricing and terms based on these inputs are permitted, not just denials. And number three, to avoid inadvertently capturing standard mortgage compensation systems. If the intent is to stop behavioral surveillance pricing, these clarifications will align the bill to that intent while protecting safe and sound credit markets. We request amendments to the bill, but if the amendments cannot be made, we will change our position to oppose. I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today, ready to answer any questions you might have of me.

Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, my name is Michael Smith, Colorado State Director for NFIB, the National Federation of Independent Business. Sorry, a little winded, just walked up from the main floor. NFIB is the largest advocacy organization for small businesses in Colorado, representing approximately 6,000 small businesses in all types of industries. NFIB supports economic growth, reducing regulatory burdens, and protecting small business owners in Colorado and in all 50 states. I am here today in opposition to House Bill 1210. The compliance costs and litigation risk this bill creates for small businesses make it highly concerning to our members. Small businesses operate on tight margins and do not have teams of attorneys to handle lawsuits or compliance requirements. The potential for private legal action against small businesses fosters a risky environment and not one that provides confidence for them to operate and grow their business. Most of our members have fewer than ten employees who typically wear multiple hats to keep their businesses running on a day basis The bill requires businesses to publish the procedures behind their pricing and wage practices This type of compliance requirement would be particularly burdensome for our members We oppose House Bill 1210 because it will put our members in a position where they will be increasingly subjected to unnecessary compliance and litigation costs that can severely damage their business and even put them out of business. Thank you for allowing me to testify, and I respectfully ask you to vote no on House Bill 1210.

Senator Liston. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have a question to Mr. Wood of TechNet, I believe.

I think that's to Mr. Wood.

Mr. Wood, are you there?

Please go ahead. I think I heard you say, I just want to make sure. has this type of legislation been introduced in other states are we the first state to do this type of legislation could you elaborate a little bit Mr. Wood

and then I have a question to Ms. Jensen are you there

Ms. Jensen you represent the mortgage industry or the lenders association could you give us some idea I know you want to have an amend position which is fine but could there be litigation so if I'm a potential borrower and I go and I want to have a mortgage through one of your members, and I find that somehow through the mortgage approval process that I could have gotten an eighth of a point better or a quarter of a point, whatever it may be, could I turn around and then sue the mortgage lender under this bill?

Am I understanding that we're interpreting this to believe that loan-to-value considerations would be exempted from a rate offering on a mortgage? Because the data is obtained through online systems and different loan-to-value ratios Those are calculated off of different valuation models not just appraisals but online valuations as well that those are characteristics that could fall under the language of this bill Senator Liston. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Ms. Jensen, so I'm wondering, so there again, if this bill were to be passed and with the potential threat of litigation, would that be potentially priced into the mortgage loan to say, look, there is a 3% or 5% chance, whatever percentage chance of litigation, wouldn't that potentially drive up the cost to consumers for a mortgage loan?

Very good. Thank you. Seeing no further questions, we'll go ahead and retire this panel. Up next, I have Ellen Buckley, Charles Brennan, Elsa Gartenman, Lee Heppner, and Kathleen Forsyth. And again, we'll go ahead and start right here and work our way down and then we'll go online whenever you're ready. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Mr. Brennan, I assume?

Thank you. Thank you. Ms. Buckley.

Please vote yes. Thank you. Thanks, folks. Okay, we'll go to our online witnesses. Please start by introducing yourself, remind the committee who you represent today, and proceed with your two minutes. Please watch the clock so I don't have to interrupt you. Thank you. I think you're muted, ma'am, if you could please unmute yourself. Thank you, and I'm sorry I'm in my car. Well, that's no problem. Welcome. My name is Kathleen Forsyth, and thank you, Madam and Mr. Chair, for inviting me. I come here as a consumer, and I've been listening to everyone, and I'm interested in talking about two things, the effect on me as a consumer, that's fiscal, and being able to understand how surveillance pricing has affected me. I'm in the technology business. I have been for years. So I understand how these things work underneath. But what I had the chance to see with the Consumer Reports Instacart investigation was in real time how I would be affected by price surveillance. surveillance. I saw the price of eggs vary 20%. Same store, same people online, same exact circumstances, a very well-conducted experiment. Fiscally, I could have suffered. Fiscally, I could have profited. But how did they know how to set the price for me as the person who was there. And that's concerning to me. I do not want to have a price based on either being a woman or whatever it might be. So, the surveillance pricing to me is pernicious and it's dangerous. And I watched it in action I watched 20 variances across cities across users and across stores So it is real and it has a very real fiscal impact on me as a consumer So I here for the consumer and I here to say that I am in favor of the bill and against surveillance pricing. And as a final note, you know, after Consumer Reports did this, Instacart dropped surveillance pricing. That, to me, says everything about what it is that they were thinking they might accomplish and what it is that's shining a light on what they did, did accomplish. Thank you for listening and thank you for your very hard work to make this bill be passed. Thank you so much. Welcome, sir. Good afternoon, committee members. My name is Lee Heppner. I'm senior legal counsel at the American Economic Liberties Project, which has been engaged in research and policy development related to surveillance pricing for the past several years. Today, we released a poll of likely Colorado voters regarding this legislation. 78% support this legislation to prohibit companies from using surveillance data, including browsing history, location, and other personal information to determine what consumers pay or what workers earn. And recalling Senator Wiseman's introductory comments, this is not a partisan issue. Our poll found that 77% of Democrats support this legislation and 78% of Republicans support this legislation. The demand for basic market fairness is not partisan. With respect to the alternative poll numbers offered to this committee, I am not surprised that if you ask whether loyalty programs should be banned, 70% of voters will say no. But that's not what this bill does. It protects loyalty programs from becoming a minefield. Corporations should not manipulate the value of rewards points between loyalty program members or manipulate their redemption value in the marketplace. Nor does this legislation ban coupons. Look, I grew up in a household that clipped coupons, but those coupons were available to anyone who sought them. They served as advertisements that enticed consumers to purchase new items or surplus products. This bill does not ban coupons, but says that they should not be vectors for price discrimination. Nothing about this bill curbs the ability to provide safe and affordable lending, including to low-income communities who are disproportionately targeted with higher interest rates or who are denied access to credit altogether. Moreover, this bill creates an exemption for creditors and lenders who enter into a financial transaction governed by the Fair Credit Reporting Act. Nor does this bill ban data-driven pricing. It does not limit market research that corporations have used for a century to predict the market demand for their products. This bill does not touch electronic shelf labels, contrary to what a previous speaker said. Broadband companies should continue to offer discounts to entice new customers. That is price competition. What they should not do is exploit consumer personal information to discriminate in the marketplace, identify consumer pain points, and transform the economy into a house of mirrors. Committee members, several opposition speakers offered some version of no one to support unfair and discriminatory prices. I respectfully commend this legislation to you. Thank you. All right. Thank you so much. Okay, members, are there any questions for this panel? Okay, seeing none, thank you so much for your time today. We'll welcome our next panel. Travis Hall, Robert Lindgren, Gabrielle Solis, Josh Mantel, Lorenzo Harris. Thank you Would you like to be in Okay. All right. Welcome. Please remind the committee who you represent today and proceed with your two minutes. Thank you, Madam Chair, members of the committee. My name is Joshua Mantel, and I'm the Director of Government Affairs for the Bell Policy Center. I'm here to testify in support of HB 1210, and thank you to Senators Weissman and Judah for bringing this important bill forward. Ensuring that companies are not able to use personal characteristics to reduce wages for workers or increase costs for consumers is common sense. We appreciate that this bill is working to ensure that discrimination by another name does not thrive here in Colorado. Last year, when a similar bill was brought in the House, we heard businesses say that this bill was harmful because it would prevent coupons or harm their company's ability to provide discounts. While that was never the intent of the legislation, we appreciate the sponsors working to clear up these misconceptions within the bill. But as we think about this piece of legislation specifically, it's important to put it into a broader context. Many members of this body came to office this session with the goal of increasing affordability for Coloradans. And in this day and age, that is an important goal and one that we share. With consumer protection being dismantled more and more every day at the federal level, it has never been more important for Colorado to lead the way for consumers, workers, and small businesses who could not dictate market conditions like large corporations. In regard to issues such as these, we at the Bell have felt it important to think of small businesses in the same way as consumers. small businesses like consumers buy from larger corporations small businesses cannot wield the data and market share that larger businesses can and those small and local businesses get pushed out of the market by the bigger businesses would be hard to imagine a true small business being able to afford not only the technology that it would take to personalize prices and wages for individual but to also to deploy that information in a large-scale way our data is everywhere and while that is partly the price to pay for living in this digital age we cannot let those personal and unique characteristics across the internet, reduce workers' wages, or increase prices that we pay for necessary goods. The market dictates wages and prices, not algorithms. We cannot allow big corporations to control our state's affordability. For a true free market to flourish, we need to ensure that everyone gets the same information and big corporations cannot rig the system for their own profit while workers, consumers, and small businesses are stuck with the bill. We stand strongly behind HB 1210 and ask you to vote yes on this legislation. Thank you. Thank you so much. Okay, we'll go to our online participants. I can't see your names, and so if we can call Travis Hall. Actually, Travis Hall. Great. I'll go. Thank you so much. Welcome. Thank you. My name is Dr. Travis Hall, and I appreciate the opportunity to testify on behalf of the Center for Democracy and Technology regarding HB 261210 in firm support. CDT is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that works to advance civil rights and civil liberties in the digital age for everyone. And we've been around for 30 plus years. Digital collection, sorting, processing and selling of vast amounts of data, private personal data, unbounded by any comprehensive data privacy law, has enabled businesses and data brokers who serve them to create intimate portraits of individual consumers, which can be used to size them up with susceptibility to pay more without their knowledge, let alone their consent. Sellers can now access the personal data, including consumers' previous purchase history and searches, income, assets, debt, financial conditions, and history, purchase, family life, employment, work life, all these things. I wanted to note that this is individual, which means that your political scorecards also can be included in this and can be a part of what kind of prices you get. And surveillance pricing, and what we sometimes call the post-pricing pricing, is tailored to the individual. And it's a rank abandonment of the transparent list price approach that was referenced earlier that serves customers well and has justified the free enterprise as best benefiting consumers and the economy. And I just want to say it exploits a stark information advantage that sellers online can wield over consumers. It is absolutely clear that companies have this information and can exploit it to know what price the consumers have. And the consumers are not able to do the same, do not have that same information about the businesses, right? They don't know when the businesses really want their business. They don't have that same advantage. And since we're running low on time, I just wanted to note that a discount is not a discount if the price is not set and transparent. Right. If the price is moved for every individual individually, then discounts are meaningless. I urge you to vote yes on this bill. Thank you so much. Thank you. Do we have Mr. Harris? Please proceed. Welcome. Thank you. Good afternoon, chair members of the committee. My name is Lorenzo Harris, and I'm the policy campaigns director at the Community Economic Defense Project. Many families are living paycheck to paycheck where they have to make every dollar count. What may look small on paper can be the tipping point for a household already stretched thin. Many families' budgets are calibrated down to the dollar. A few extra dollars on groceries or a more expensive hotel room when they are trying to avoid losing housing or lower pay for someone who cannot afford to turn down work can quickly add up. And when they do, families fall behind on rent, take on debt, or skip essentials. We see this every day. Take a parent whose car is broken down and who still needs groceries for that week. If a company can use surveillance data to determine that this person has fewer options, is under stress, and is likely to pay whatever price is in front of them, that is using technology to identify vulnerability and turn it into profit. This bill asks whether companies should be allowed to use surveillance tools to identify vulnerability and capitalize on it. For many of the people we serve, this is happening at moments when there is no real choice. They're not shopping around in a free and open market. They're trying to get through a crisis, often without even knowing what data is being used against them or why they are being shown a higher price in the first place. That is what makes HB20S2 of 10 so important. It's about whether companies can use data to figure out when someone has the least leverage and then profit from that moment. For the communities we serve, that harm adds up quickly, and when people are already stretched thin, being quietly charged more or paid less can be the difference between staying stable and falling even further behind. HB 261210 draws an important line, one that effectively declares that technology should not be used to exploit vulnerability for profit. We respectfully ask for a yes vote. Thank you. Thank you so much. Welcome back, Mr. Neal. There we go. Thank you, Madam Chair and members of Senate Business, Labor and Technology. My name is Michael Neal. I'm a volunteer for Colorado Cross Disability Coalition and I rise in strong support of HB 261210. Ms. Gardeman, I think in the previous panel, really said a lot of what I was going to say to frame this debate and frame what I think is important for the disability community But I wanted to get that down to a sort of a granular level about things that I use every day. I just went on to amazon.com and I was checking to see what the latest price was for Dragon Naturally Speaking. It's a program that allows you to dictate via voice through a microphone, and it will write your essays or whatever you need to write for you. And it's now anywhere between $5.99 for used to up to $7.99. $799. And I presume that at this point, Amazon with a clear cookie cache does not know that I have a disability. I can only imagine what it would be if it did know that I had a disability or if I went to a store and it was obvious that I had a disability, what these algorithms would price me at. Similarly, things like absorbent underwear or iodine for cleaning for catheterizations. All of these things are absolute necessities for folks with disabilities and certainly for me in particular. And I would, you know, I shudder to think at what those prices would rise to if folks knew that we were over a barrel and could not have any choice but to buy them. And there would be no option. If it was $1,000, you'd still have to buy it because you need it. So I ask for an aye vote. Thank you so much, Mr. Neal. All right, folks, are there questions for this panel? Okay, seeing none, thanks again for your time and your patience. I know it's been a long afternoon. All right, folks, at this time we would just welcome any other folks who would like to speak to the bill online or in the room. Welcome to the table. All right. Who would like to begin? Go ahead in the middle there. Oh, okay. Ms. Forseth. Hello, my name is Kirsten Forseth, and I'm here representing the Colorado AFL-CIO, representing over 130,000 union members across 180 affiliates statewide. I urge your support of 1210. Wage-setting algorithms threaten a fundamental promise of work, that hard work earns fair pay. Under these systems, two workers doing exactly the same job can be paid differently, not based on quality or effort, but based on an algorithm flagged one of them as likely to accept less pay, often using personal data that has nothing to do with the job. While most visible in app-based and on-demand work, These tools are now being deployed in traditional W-2 employees as well. Researchers at UC Irvine found that these algorithms stop rewarding effort and start exploiting it Rather than paying workers based on what they contribute the systems calculate the lowest wage each worker can tolerate drive wages down at a time when Colorado families can least afford it Hard work should mean something. It should be rewarded. Wage-setting algorithms put the principal at risk. Please support 1210. Hello, my name is Steven Lustig and I am an organizer and Uber and Lyft driver. I'm going to be reading the testimony of a fellow organizer and driver. Good morning, my name is Gabriela Arias. I'm an Uber and Lyft driver and I also work with CIDU here in Colorado. Today I'm not here just to speak for myself, but for hundreds of drivers who work hard every day and still struggle to get ahead. Most drivers work more than 12 hours a day, completing ride after ride, and yet our earnings remain uncertain. It's not because we're not working enough, it's because the system decides for us. An algorithm sets our pay without transparency, using data we cannot see, and that constantly changes. That is not fair. We simply want a time to be valued, our rights to be respected, and to have greater security. Today, two drivers can do the exact same work in the same place and receive a completely different pay. There is no clarity, no control, and no protection. This is why HB 1210 is so necessary. This bill sets limits on that system. Prohibits the use of hidden or surveillance-based data to determine how much our work is worth and it guarantees something basic, equal pay or equal work. This is not just about money. It is about dignity. It is about being able to work under clear rules without feeling like we are at a disadvantage in a system that we do not understand. Today you have the opportunity to make a real change. Please support HB 1210. Thank you. Thank you. Good afternoon, Madam Chair, members of the committee. Good afternoon, I guess now. My name is Ken O'Donnell. I'm a 12-year veteran driver of Rideshare, and I'm a member of the CIDU, and I'm also on the board of directors for the Drivers' Co-op of Colorado. At the Drivers' Co-op of Colorado, we actually don't use personal data to prey upon people, so this bill doesn't change how we would operate. So why am I here? I'm here because one of the core principles of the Drivers' Cooperative is fairness for all drivers and riders. So I'm going to peel back the curtain here for a second. Michelangelo. When you hear that name, you think of the Sistine Chapel. You think of art. You think of beauty etched into history. You think of the Statue of David, the perfect sculpture of human form. But in the world of big tech, that name means something completely different. You see, in 2015, Uber's CEO called drivers the biggest expense and liability. They started their autonomous vehicle program. That same year, they launched a machine learning system. they called it Michelangelo. But instead of sculpting art, they took a more manipulative path. They began sculpting human behavior. You see, Michelangelo performs millions of functions per minute to milk the customer and to extort every penny from the driver. It knows when your phone battery is low. It knows when you were behind on rent. It knows when you've just begged the electric company for an extension. This is unconscionable. Do you know that Uber and Lyft even hires behavioral psychologists in a division called Uber Labs to refine this exploitation. Uber and Lyft might claim they use personal data this main claim that they don use personal data but if that true they be sitting right here next to me supporting this bill and not trying to crush it So as Coloradans we been the pioneers of the West We've been the brave. We've been the fearless. And I ask you today to be brave and fearless. Don't just pass this bill at a committee. Pass it through the Senate and pass it with a veto-proof majority. Send a message that Coloradans stand up for workers, not for predatory algorithms. Pass this bill. Thank you. Thank you. All right, members, are there any questions for this panel? Okay, seeing none, thank you so much for being here today. And there's no one online, so last call for testimony. So I think the workers who came here today, because it's difficult to get off of work to come here and tell us about what's good for workers, we recognize as difficult and inconvenient and so I really appreciate you taking the time and also staying to have your say. Alright we'll close the witness testimony phase. Welcome back sponsors. Senator Weissman. Thank you. So, committee, we don't have amendments at this point. I did want to note for the record, we have been in conversation with a number of folks who have paid attention to and have an interest in the policy, and pretty good chance that we will have finished developing some amendments for second reading, should the committee send us there, and I hope that you do. By way of preview, some of those concern where there may be an intersection with federal law, some of those concern where there may be already a big body of state law on point. You see a few references to that kind of thing in the bill already. Some might be in the vein of clarification. So we have resisted and we are here to continue resisting broad attempts to just carve entire swaths out of the framework that the bill proposes because, again, we're here to protect people from getting price gouged or taken advantage of in their job. So nothing today, Madam Chair. Okay. Are there any amendments from members of the committee? Okay, we'll close the amendment phase. Senator Judah further wrap up from Senator Weissman go ahead Senator Judah Senator Judah thank you Madam Chair I'll be brief listen at the end of the day we just want to protect consumers and we want to protect people who should be making a wage that they deserve based on their skills what they bring to the job not based on what an algorithm behind some curtain decides for them, not based on an algorithm deciding how much people should pay for groceries or much needed goods based on their desperation, if you will. So with that, I very much urge an aye vote and reinforcing what my co-prime said, that the amount of work and stakeholding that has gone in this bill over the past few months and will continue to happen has been extraordinary. and I credit my co-primes in the House, but with that, I do ask for an aye vote. Thank you. Senator Weissman. Thanks. And Madam Chair, you've said it, and I'm glad you did, but I also wanted to add my thanks to members of the public who came here at some opportunity cost to themselves to testify or just to see what we're doing because there is a lot of opportunity by this issue because they want and need and deserve this kind of protection from, frankly, technology that is running away from our social and legal framework to their and others' detriment. You heard reference to one poll, and there's been allusion from one of witnesses partial to the bill, of another one. Verbatim question put to Colorado voters beginning of this month. Do you support or oppose this policy banning surveillance price and wage setting in Colorado? All voters, 61% strongly support, another 17% somewhat support. Republican voter breakout, 56% strongly support, another 22% somewhat support. If you ask about loyalty programs, I want loyalty programs too. I've got the King Soopers grocery card in my wallet. That's not what we're talking about. I'll just end with a story. There was maybe a passing allusion and testimony to a different bill related to pricing practices that I would have been on had it come to the Senate. It won't come to the Senate. It was killed on House Committee. But weeks ago, I was coming into the building, quarter to 8 in the morning, and a younger man maybe about 30 was in the stairwell near here had been up to my office looking for me at quarter to eight in the morning It pretty unusual around here right He called me out by name He said Weissman, I said, yeah. He said, I just want to thank you for trying on this other bill. We chatted about it for a minute. Pretty unusual, right? Somebody tracks you down by name. You've not met them before. That early in the morning, just to say thank you for trying on an effort. and as we were parting, he said, it's not like it used to be. People understand what's going on. People understand that the biggest of the big companies, which is what we're talking about here, do you know how many small businesses in Aurora have reached out to me and said, put the brakes on this bill, it's going to hurt me? Zero. Because we're not talking about small business. We are talking about methodologies deployed by the big, big, big actors in the economy. There have been times in our history, the Industrial Revolution of the late 1800s was one of those times. We're in another time now when technology and the business practices that it enables just runs away from basic decency, from, I think, the kind of society that we want to live in. And the law has to catch up. what we are proposing here with 1210 is the law catching up in a pretty modest narrow way to some of the most abusive pricing and wage practices that are out there in the economy while taking pains to protect a lot of things that aren algorithmic in nature that have been going on for a long time and that should be continued to allow going on. You know, there was a question about other states, apt question. I always want to know that too. and I think we heard this kind of thing has been killed or watered down in other states. I would submit it's been killed or watered down in rooms like this by testimony, like some of what we heard today, respectfully, not a lot of which was strictly anchored in the bill. We don't have to be that room. We don't have to be that legislature. We don't have to follow suit. We can do something different. We can try to legislate better protections for people in our state, Democratic and Republican. who know full well that things are changing out there in pricing and in wages, and not for the better. So I ask you to vote yes. Okay. Thanks, everybody. And I also want to thank Ms. Chapman and our awesome staff here on these longer hearings. We really appreciate everything you do every day, but particularly when we go lengthy. All right folks Senator Judo would you like to move your bill to the Committee of the Whole Thank you Madam Chair yes I move House Bill 26 to the Committee of the Whole with a favorable recommendation That is a proper motion. Ms. Chapman, please poll the committee. Senator Judah. Aye. Liston. No. Rich. No. Enthusiastically, yes. Madam Chair. Yes. Congratulations. Your bill passes on a vote of 3-2. You are headed to the floor the committee of the whole. Take care everybody. Have a great afternoon. Thank you.