National Commission on Children and Disasters. 2010 Report to the ...

Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) Privacy Rule, 401 and the Family Educational
Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). 402 Questions remain about whether sharing PII during an
emergency for the purpose of evacuee tracking is explicitly prohibited by privacy laws or
limited by interpretations of laws. The <strong>Commission</strong> recognizes the importance of ensuring
privacy and confidentiality of personal information, and in certain cases, strengthened
privacy regulations are needed during disasters to protect children. Yet, information such as
the location of unaccompanied minors can speed family reunification and should be shared
with appropriate agencies and organizations when it is clearly in the best interest of a child.
The <strong>Commission</strong> recommends that evacuee tracking systems utilized by all levels of
government collect appropriate data on evacuated children, particularly unaccompanied
minors. A 2006 White House report called on DHS and the Department of Transportation to
evaluate State and local evacuation plans and singled out unaccompanied minors as one
subgroup that must be addressed in those plans. 403 In response to suggestions from the
<strong>Commission</strong> during NMETS development, FEMA improved NMETS’s ability to track children
by adding an “unaccompanied minor” check box and additional information fields to each
of the versions of NMETS. 404 Simultaneously, processes and procedures must be in place to
allow youth, parents, and legal guardians to review information that is collected about them
and that may be disclosed, and allow them to approve or amend their information. 405
401 Under the HIPAA Privacy Rule, the disclosure of protected health information can only occur with written
consent of the individual, unless the routine use exemption applies. P.L. 104-191, 101 Stat. 1936 (1996).
402 Guidance released in 2010 states that “FERPA permits school officials to disclose, without consent, education
records, or personally identifiable information from education records, to appropriate parties in connection with an
emergency, if knowledge of that information is necessary to protect the health or safety of the student or other
individuals.” U.S. Department of Education, Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) and the Disclosure
of Student Information Related to Emergencies and Disasters, (Washington, DC: ED, June 2010), 4,
http://www2.ed.gov/policy/gen/guid/fpco/pdf/ferpa-disaster-guidance.pdf.
403 The White House, The Federal Response to Hurricane Katrina: Lessons Learned, (Washington, DC: The White
House, February 2006), 100, http://library.stmarytx.edu/acadlib/edocs/katrinawh.pdf.
404 When this box is checked on the electronic version, a message appears in red text indicating that the
unaccompanied minor should be escorted to the proper authorities in compliance with State evacuation
procedures. Also added to NMETS were fields allowing input of information to describe an unaccompanied minor
(e.g., eye color, hair color, and other distinguishing features) and indicate the name of the agency or individual
who has taken the minor into custody. FEMA is also exploring development of an unaccompanied minors registry
which would serve as a central repository for registering unaccompanied minors located during a disaster. This
system would assist States to uniformly register unaccompanied minors, search data fields, and reunite families
more quickly.
405 Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, Guidelines for Juvenile Information Sharing, 16.
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