Corinne Lestch reports:
The City Council is pushing for the creation of a medical registry for people with developmental disabilities along with access to GPS tracking devices in the wake of 14-year-old Avonte Oquendo’s death.
The package of legislation, spearheaded by Council members Ruben Wills (D-Queens) and Vanessa Gibson (D-Bronx) calls for a new voluntary database controlled by the NYPD so that parents can register children with disabilities at their local precincts.
Read more on The Daily News.
I do not doubt the good intentions of the legislators, but if this is essentially a medical safety registry, why not create it under the Department of Health or an agency that is covered by HIPAA so that there is greater protection for the data? Turning over personal information of this kind to the police gives them one more database that may wind up misused at some point.