Colorado § 15-1-1506 - Procedure for disclosing digital assets.

§ 15-1-1506. Procedure for disclosing digital assets.

(1) When disclosing digital assets of a user under this part 15, the custodian may at its sole discretion:

(a) Grant a fiduciary or designated recipient full access to the user's account;

(b) Grant a fiduciary or designated recipient partial access to the user's account sufficient to perform the tasks with which the fiduciary or designated recipient is charged; or

(c) Provide a fiduciary or designated recipient a copy in a record of any digital asset that, on the date the custodian received the request for disclosure, the user could have accessed if the user were alive and had full capacity and access to the account.

(2) A custodian may assess a reasonable administrative charge for the cost of disclosing digital assets under this part 15.

(3) A custodian need not disclose under this part 15 a digital asset deleted by a user.

(4) If a user directs or a fiduciary requests a custodian to disclose under this part 15 some, but not all, of the user's digital assets, the custodian need not disclose the assets if segregation of the assets would impose an undue burden on the custodian. If the custodian believes the direction or request imposes an undue burden, the custodian or fiduciary may seek an order from the court to disclose:

(a) A subset limited by date of the user's digital assets;

(b) All of the user's digital assets to the fiduciary or designated recipient;

(c) None of the user's digital assets; or

(d) All of the user's digital assets to the court for review in camera.

Source: L. 2016: Entire part added, (SB 16-088), ch. 71, p. 183, § 1, effective August 10.

OFFICIAL COMMENT

This section governs a custodian's response to a request for disclosure of a user's digital assets.

Subsection (1) gives the custodian of digital assets a choice of methods for disclosing digital assets to an authorized fiduciary. Each custodian has a different business model and may prefer one method over another.

Subsection (2) allows a custodian to assess a reasonable administrative charge for the cost of disclosure. This is intended to be analogous to the charge any business may assess for administrative tasks outside the ordinary course of its business to comply with a court order.

Subsection (3) states that any digital asset deleted by the user need not be disclosed, even if recoverable by the custodian. Deletion is assumed to be a good indication that the user did not intend for a fiduciary to have access.

Subsection (4) addresses requests that are unduly burdensome because they require segregation of digital assets. For example, a fiduciary's request for disclosure of "any email pertaining to financial matters" would require a custodian to sort through the full list of emails and cull any irrelevant messages before disclosure. If a custodian receives an unduly burdensome request of this sort, it may decline to disclose the digital assets, and either the fiduciary or custodian may seek guidance from a court.