Late 2025 marks a fundamental shift in the enforcement lifecycle of the Colorado Privacy Act (CPA). The initial phase, characterized by education, regulatory rulemaking, and a statutory “right to cure,” has definitively concluded. It is being replaced by a new era of proactive, coordinated, and potentially punitive enforcement. This transition is not subtle; it is a clear inflection point for any organization that conducts business in Colorado or targets its residents.
If you operate a business outside of Colorado but allow website visitors and process their data even if unknowingly you are going to want to be compliant and use the Captain Compliance software to protect against expensive regulatory enforcements. On top of that law firms are being aggressive with litigation against offenders so it’s best to use privacy software that works and comes with a protection guarantee.
An Inflection Point for Colorado Privacy Compliance
Two key catalysts are driving this transformation. First, the September 2025 joint investigative sweep focusing on Global Privacy Control (GPC) compliance served as a powerful signal of heightened regulatory scrutiny and unprecedented interstate collaboration. Second, the January 1, 2025, expiration of the CPA’s 60-day “right to cure” provision has removed a critical safety net for businesses, empowering the Colorado Attorney General to move directly from investigation to levying fines.
The Anatomy of the September 2025 Action
On September 9, 2025, the Attorneys General of Colorado, California, and Connecticut, in coordination with the California Privacy Protection Agency (CPPA), announced a joint enforcement initiative. The action involved sending formal letters to businesses that regulators identified as potentially non-compliant with their legal obligation to honor GPC signals. These were not mere suggestions but official notices demanding immediate corrective action to come into compliance with the law.
The investigation’s focus was narrow and precise: the failure of businesses to recognize and process GPC signals as valid consumer requests to opt out of the sale or sharing of their personal information for purposes like targeted advertising.
The Legal and Technical Significance of Global Privacy Control (GPC)
The Global Privacy Control signal is more than just a piece of technology; it is a legally recognized “universal opt-out mechanism” (UOOM) under the Colorado Privacy Act. Since July 1, 2024, businesses subject to the CPA that process personal data for targeted advertising or the sale of personal data have been required to honor such mechanisms.
The Colorado Attorney General’s office has specifically designated GPC as an acceptable UOOM, removing any ambiguity for businesses about which signals must be honored and making GPC compliance a clear enforcement priority. From a consumer’s perspective, GPC simplifies the process of exercising privacy rights. It is a setting or extension in a user’s browser that automatically transmits an opt-out preference to every website visited. This eliminates the need for consumers to repeatedly click on individual cookie banners or “Do Not Sell My Personal Information” links on each site.
The choice to focus on GPC compliance is strategically significant. It represents a technical, binary issue: a business either recognizes the signal or it does not. This makes non-compliance relatively easy for regulators to detect through automated scans and difficult for businesses to dispute. It serves as an effective litmus test for a company’s overall privacy compliance maturity. Regulators require efficient methods to identify non-compliance at scale, and unlike more nuanced obligations such as data minimization, GPC adherence can be checked remotely and programmatically. This proactive, rather than complaint-driven, approach signals a more aggressive enforcement posture, starting with simple, visible violations to communicate that all rules will be enforced.
A New Model of Enforcement: The Consortium of Privacy Regulators
The September sweep was not an isolated event. It was the first major public action of the “Consortium of Privacy Regulators,” a multi-state alliance formed in April 2025 that includes Colorado, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Indiana, New Jersey, and Oregon. The Consortium’s stated goals are to coordinate investigations, share resources, and promote a consistent interpretation of state privacy laws, which the members note have “fundamental similarities”.
This action demonstrates that businesses now face the risk of coordinated, multi-jurisdictional investigations. A compliance failure in one state can trigger scrutiny from a coalition of regulators, which significantly amplifies legal and financial risk. The GPC sweep serves as a proof of concept for a new national enforcement reality. Its success will likely embolden the eight-state Consortium to tackle more complex issues, such as health data or children’s privacy, in a coordinated fashion. A company can no longer manage its Colorado privacy risk in isolation from its risk in California or Connecticut. An enforcement action in one jurisdiction will likely be shared and used as precedent by other Consortium members, creating a potential domino effect that fundamentally changes the risk calculation for national businesses.
The ‘Grace Period’ Era (Pre-2025): Enforcement Through Nudges
From its inception, the CPA included a 60-day “right to cure” provision, which remained in effect until its statutory sunset on January 1, 2025. This provision dictated the state’s initial enforcement strategy. Upon receiving a notice of an alleged violation from the Attorney General, a business had 60 days to remedy the issue. If the business fixed the problem and provided the AG with an express written statement confirming the violation had been cured, no enforcement action would be brought.
This legal structure directly led to an enforcement approach based on warnings and notices rather than public fines. The lack of significant financial penalties under the CPA to date is a direct consequence of this provision, as businesses that chose to comply would cure violations privately and avoid further action.
The Post-Cure Landscape and The Direct Path to Penalties
With the expiration of the cure period, the enforcement landscape has been fundamentally altered. The Colorado Attorney General is no longer statutorily required to provide notice or an opportunity to fix violations before initiating an enforcement action and seeking penalties.
The potential penalties are significant. Under the CPA, a violation is considered a deceptive trade practice, which can result in civil penalties of up to $20,000 per violation, with a maximum penalty of $500,000 for any related series of violations. The removal of this procedural safeguard elevates the risk for all covered businesses. A single audit or investigation can now lead directly to substantial financial penalties without a mandatory warning period.
The timing of the GPC sweep in September 2025, just months before the cure period expired, was a calculated move. It created maximum leverage for the regulators, effectively giving non-compliant businesses one final, high-profile chance to use the 60-day cure provision. The public nature of the sweep served as a powerful, market-wide behavioral nudge, warning the entire industry that the safety net was about to disappear and that immediate fines would be the new norm.
This shift also mandates a change in compliance posture from reactive to proactive. Previously, a company could theoretically wait for a notice to fix a minor issue, as the law itself provided a buffer. By removing that buffer, the law now implicitly demands constant, verifiable, and documented compliance, which has significant downstream effects on budgeting, staffing, and the need for continuous auditing and monitoring.
The Shifting Enforcement Landscape of the Colorado Privacy Act
| Enforcement Feature | Before January 1, 2025 | After January 1, 2025 |
| Notice of Violation | Mandatory notice required from AG | AG may proceed directly to enforcement action |
| Cure Period | 60-day statutory window to remedy | No statutory cure period |
| Path to Fines | Fines contingent on failure to cure violation | Fines can be levied immediately upon violation |
| Business Risk Level | Moderate; focused on responsive compliance | High; requires proactive, continuous compliance |
A Broader Regulatory Horizon: New Rules and Alliances
Raising the Bar for Young Users: New Protections for Minors’ Data
The Colorado Attorney General’s office has not only intensified enforcement of existing rules but has also actively expanded the scope of the CPA. New regulations that took effect on October 1, 2025, significantly enhance protections for minors. Key changes include:
- Expanded Age of Protection: The rules raise the age of protection from children under 13 to “minors” under the age of 18, creating a large new category of protected individuals.
- Affirmative Consent: Businesses must now obtain affirmative consent from minors aged 13 to 17, or verifiable parental consent for children under 13, before processing their personal data for targeted advertising, sale, or certain types of profiling.
- Duty of Care: The new rules impose a “duty of reasonable care” on businesses to avoid any “heightened risk of harm to minors” caused by their online services.
- Data Protection Assessments: Businesses must conduct and document Data Protection Assessments (DPAs) for any online service that presents a heightened risk of harm to minors.
This expansion from protecting “children” to “minors” is a deliberate policy choice that creates a massive new compliance burden for services popular with teenagers, such as social media, gaming, and e-commerce platforms. It is not a minor tweak but a change that may require re-architecting services that were previously designed for a 13+ audience.
The New Frontier of Sensitive Data: Enhanced Biometric Rules
Parallel to the new rules for minors, the state also implemented enhanced regulations for biometric data, effective July 2025. These rules introduce stringent new requirements, including:
- Expanded Definitions: The regulations provide broad definitions for “biometric identifier” and “biometric data”.
- Strict Consent: Businesses must obtain explicit consent before collecting biometric data. This consent cannot be required as a condition of employment except in very narrow circumstances, such as for access to secure locations.
- Prohibition on Sale: The rules prohibit controllers from selling, leasing, or trading biometric identifiers.
- Data Management: The regulations mandate specific data deletion schedules and require businesses to maintain written incident response protocols for biometric data.
The Power of the Pack: The Growing Influence of Interstate Cooperation
These new Colorado-specific rules reflect a national trend of states focusing on the privacy of minors and the handling of biometric data. The Consortium of Privacy Regulators has already identified children’s data as a key area of concern in its founding memorandum. This suggests that Colorado’s new rules could become a template or a point of alignment for future coordinated enforcement actions by the Consortium. The sequence of events is telling: the state finalizes detailed rules on a complex topic, and after a grace period, enforcement follows. The new rules for minors and biometrics are the next logical candidates for targeted enforcement sweeps.
Actionable Compliance Strategy
The shift in Colorado’s enforcement posture demands a corresponding shift in compliance strategy. The following actions are critical for mitigating risk in the current regulatory environment and the team members here at Captain Compliance can help implement and automate this for you with our full suite of privacy tools.
Technical Readiness: Mastering the Universal Opt-Out
- Conduct a Technical Audit: Businesses must immediately audit all websites and applications to confirm they are configured to detect and honor GPC signals. This is no longer optional.
- Validate Consent Management Platforms (CMPs): Do not assume a third-party CMP is compliant. Actively test that it correctly interprets GPC signals and that this preference overrides any conflicting settings or defaults.
- Ensure Downstream Signal Propagation: When a GPC signal is received, the opt-out must be communicated to all third-party partners, ad networks, and data brokers to stop any subsequent selling or sharing of that consumer’s data.
- Maintain Documentation: Keep meticulous records of received GPC signals and the actions taken to honor them. This documentation is a critical defense in the event of a regulatory investigation.
Policy and Process Overhaul: Aligning with New Rules
- Update Data Protection Assessments (DPAs): Conduct new or updated DPAs specifically focused on the processing of minors’ data and biometric data, as now required by the rules. These assessments must explicitly weigh the heightened risks associated with these data types.
- Re-architect Consent Flows: Review and, if necessary, redesign user consent mechanisms to comply with the new requirements for minors (ages 13-17) and the stringent opt-in standards for biometric data. This may involve implementing age-gating or using commercially reasonable age estimation processes.
- Revise Privacy Notices: Public-facing privacy policies must be updated to accurately disclose the new rights and data handling practices related to GPC, minors, and biometrics, ensuring transparency for consumers and regulators alike.
Strategic Posture: Navigating a Multi-State Environment
- Adopt a Highest Common Denominator Approach: Given the activities of the Consortium of Privacy Regulators, a state-by-state, siloed compliance strategy is no longer viable. Businesses should align their privacy programs with the strictest standards across the key states in which they operate, such as California, Colorado, and Connecticut.
- Monitor Consortium Activities: Actively monitor announcements and enforcement actions from all members of the Consortium, not just Colorado. The priorities of the alliance are the best indicator of future enforcement trends.
- Budget for Proactive Compliance: The end of the cure period necessitates a budget shift from reactive legal fixes to proactive, continuous compliance monitoring. This includes funding for regular audits, comprehensive employee training, and potentially new privacy-enhancing technologies.
The data privacy landscape in Colorado has irrevocably changed. The era of educational warnings and statutory grace periods is over. The convergence of the GPC sweep, which demonstrates a new capability for coordinated enforcement; the expiration of the right to cure, which removes a critical safety net; and the expansion of substantive rules for minors and biometrics, which creates new obligations, establishes a more perilous compliance reality. Businesses must treat this moment as a critical call to action, demanding immediate and sustained investment in robust, proactive, and well-documented privacy programs to navigate the enforcement challenges of 2026 and beyond.
