----- Forwarded message from Chris Hoofnagle <hoofnagleat_private> ----- From: Chris Hoofnagle <hoofnagleat_private> Subject: Homeless Tracking System Guidelines To: Declan McCullagh <declanat_private> Date: Tue, 19 Aug 2003 13:16:57 -0400 Hey Declan, I've been doing some work on Homeless Management Information Systems (HMIS), and I thought it would be of interest to Politechbot readers. HMIS are database systems intended to track recipients of benefits in order to assess the number of persons receiving care, and to improve efficiency of services to the poor. There are benefits to this tracking, but the proposed implementation is extremely privacy invasive. For instance, under the proposed guidelines, federally-funded care providers would have to collect SSNs, names, date of birth etc. This information would be linked to health (mental and physical) info, shared amongst care centers, and stored for seven years. National security and Secret Service Agents can get the information by merely asking for it. Just imagine how this system could be used to retaliate against the homeless, say in advance of the a major public event such as the Olympics. Or imagine how you could become enrolled in the system--let's say you were in Manhattan last week during the power outage and you had nowhere to go, except for a homeless shelter. You'd be in the system for 7 years. Anyway, I have a page on this at http://www.epic.org/privacy/poverty/ HUD's HMIS page, along with the guidelines, are at http://www.hud.gov/offices/cpd/homeless/hmis/index.cfm Public comment is open until September 22, 2003, but HUD is not providing any means for electronic submissions. While they are advanced enough to collect all this data electronically on the homeless, your comments must arrive in the mail for irradiation and then perhaps review by the agency. C ----- End forwarded message ----- ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/ Like Politech? Make a donation here: http://www.politechbot.com/donate/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------
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