FC: Feds craft homeless tracking system, from Chris Hoofnagle

From: Declan McCullagh (declanat_private)
Date: Thu Aug 21 2003 - 20:59:28 PDT

  • Next message: Declan McCullagh: "FC: "Earth Station 5" P2P service in West Bank dares MPAA, RIAA"

    ----- 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/
    -------------------------------------------------------------------------
    



    This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Thu Aug 21 2003 - 22:23:16 PDT