A ballot initiative campaign now circulating in Fort Collins proposes a new city ordinance that would restrict and regulate the City’s use of technology defined as “surveillance technology,” and it would require voters to approve many new deployments, expansions, or changes before they could proceed. Members of the newly formed Northern Colorado Privacy Coalition are leading the effort and are circulating two separate initiative petitions that contain identical ordinance language but seek different election timing.
One petition is written to place the measure on the next regular municipal election ballot, which is scheduled for November 2027. To qualify for that regular election, the petition must gather 5,711 valid signatures from Fort Collins voters, a threshold described as 10 percent of the ballots cast in the City’s November 2025 election. The second petition uses the same text but requests a special election that would take place this November. To qualify for a special election, the petition must gather 8,566 valid signatures, which is described as 15 percent of the ballots cast in the November 2025 city election.
What the ordinance would require before the city could act
Under the proposed ordinance, voter approval would be required before the City may enter a new surveillance contract, deploy a new surveillance technology, increase the deployment of an existing surveillance technology, or make changes to the deployment of an existing surveillance technology. The ordinance sets up a process that begins with City staff producing a detailed report and ends with City Council deciding whether to refer a question to the voters. If Council chooses to proceed, it would adopt a referendum ordinance placing the question on the ballot, and the technology deployment or deployment change could not move forward unless voters approve it.
Before any ballot question could be referred, the ordinance requires City staff to prepare a report that explains what the technology is and what it will be used for, why existing technology or processes are insufficient, what the expected contract terms are, and what internal policies will govern the technology’s use. The report must also address legal compliance, explain how data will be processed, stored, and retained, and identify who will have access to the data and under what circumstances, along with any other relevant information. The City Manager would submit this report to City Council for consideration.
What counts as “surveillance technology” under the proposal
The ordinance defines “surveillance technology” broadly as electronic devices, hardware, or software capable of collecting, capturing, recording, retaining, processing, intercepting, analyzing, monitoring, or sharing audio, visual, digital, location, thermal, biometric, behavioral, or similar information that can be associated with identifiable individuals or groups. The definition also covers systems, devices, or vehicles equipped with such technology. The text provides a non-exhaustive list of examples, and it includes tools such as automatic license plate readers, closed-circuit cameras, biometric surveillance tools, body cameras, social media monitoring software, gunshot detection systems, RFID scanners, Bluetooth or other wireless scanning devices, and software that integrates or analyzes data from surveillance technology.
The ordinance also includes specific exclusions that narrow the definition in some circumstances. The exclusions cover routine office hardware when it is not used for surveillance functions, certain parking ticket devices, some manually operated handheld cameras or recorders, certain devices that cannot record or transmit audio or video or be remotely accessed, municipal databases that do not contain surveillance data, and certain internal communications tools such as radios and email systems.
What is a “surveillance contract” and what is exempt from the vote requirement
The ordinance defines “surveillance contract” as an agreement that provides surveillance technology to a municipal entity or that facilitates the exchange of surveillance data between the City and a non-governmental entity in exchange for monetary or other consideration. The proposal also creates exemptions from the voter-approval process that are intended to preserve certain routine or continuation activities. Under the draft, renewal of an existing surveillance contract is exempt, adoption of a replacement contract with essentially identical terms is exempt, routine maintenance or repairs are exempt, and movement of existing surveillance technology to locations that are substantially equal in character is exempt.
The two 120-day requirements that would take effect after passage
If adopted, the ordinance would impose two significant implementation deadlines within 120 days after taking effect. First, the City would be required to identify existing surveillance contracts and existing deployments of surveillance technology that would have been covered under the ordinance and initiate the approval process for each one. Second, City Council would be required within the same 120-day window to adopt a separate ordinance establishing policies, procedures, and regulations governing the use of surveillance technology by municipal entities.
The required policy ordinance would have to include multiple components described in the initiative text. It would require third-party audits prior to deployment and at each contract renewal, and it would require the procedures and results of those audits to be made public at least 90 days before deployment or renewal. It would impose a two-year maximum contract term for surveillance technology contracts and would require explicit Council authorization for renewals and for contract modifications. It would prohibit external law enforcement entities from receiving direct or indirect access to surveillance technology or surveillance data, except for information manually shared by an officer as part of a specific investigation. It would state that surveillance data should be stored and maintained on hardware owned and operated by a municipal entity and located within City limits, to the extent practical. It would require a publicly available policy describing when a judicial warrant is needed to access surveillance data. It would also require publicly available metrics to evaluate the success of each covered surveillance technology.
If adopted, the initiative would shift many surveillance-related decisions into a model that relies on formal staff reporting, City Council referral, and voter approval before the City deploys, expands, or changes covered technologies. The scope of its real-world impact would likely depend on how broadly the City interprets the definitions and on how it interprets what counts as an “increase” or a “change” in deployment, as well as how many existing systems are deemed covered during the required post-passage inventory process.