SENATE DOCKET, NO. 1737        FILED ON: 1/16/2015

SENATE  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  No. 1326

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts

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PRESENTED BY:

James E. Timilty

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To the Honorable Senate and House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in General
Court assembled:

The undersigned legislators and/or citizens respectfully petition for the adoption of the accompanying bill:

An Act relative to emergency first responder notification.

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PETITION OF:

SENATE DOCKET, NO. 1737        FILED ON: 1/16/2015

SENATE  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  No. 1326

[SIMILAR MATTER FILED IN PREVIOUS SESSION
SEE SENATE, NO. 1106 OF 2013-2014.]

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts

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In the One Hundred and Eighty-Ninth General Court
(2015-2016)

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An Act relative to emergency first responder notification.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Court assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:
 

SECTION 1.  Chapter 6A of the General Laws is hereby amended by adding after section 18L the following new section:-

Section 18M Massachusetts Emergency Information Program

(a)  As used in this section, the following words shall, unless the context clearly requires otherwise, have the following meanings:—

"Disability," an individual's physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more of the major life activities; a record of such impairment; or when the individual is regarded as having such an impairment.

“Major life activities,” include, but are not limited to, caring for oneself, performing manual tasks, seeing, hearing, eating, sleeping, walking, standing, lifting, bending, speaking, breathing, learning, reading, concentrating, thinking, communicating, and working.

"Special needs individuals," those individuals who have or are at increased risk for a chronic physical, developmental, behavioral, or emotional condition and who also require health and related services of a type or amount beyond that required by individuals generally.

"Public safety agency," a functional division of a public agency that provides firefighting, police, medical, emergency management or other emergency services.

"Computer aided dispatch" or "CAD,”a database maintained by the public safety agency or public safety answering point used in conjunction with 911 caller data.

"Emergency Information Program" or "EIP," a supplemental 911 and Emergency Management database to be used in emergency scenarios.

“Public Safety Answering Point” or “PSAP,” a call center responsible for answering calls to an emergency telephone number for police, firefighting, and ambulance services.

(b) The EIP shall be a hosted supplemental 911 and Emergency Management database and shall be used by all PSAPs and Emergency Management Agencies within the Commonwealth. This supplemental database should allow for individuals to provide information to be used in emergency scenarios and planning. The EIP service should: (1) Collect a variety of formatted data relevant to 911, Emergency Management, and other Public Safety agencies. Among other items, this information should include photographs of the individual, physical descriptions, medical conditions, allergies, household data, primary language indicator, and emergency contacts  (2) allow for information to be entered by individuals via a secure website where they can elect to provide as little or as much information as they choose. (3) Be compliant with all accessibility elements of Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (4) manage the currency of the data through an aging and reminder process, at least twice per year, requesting community members to keep their data up-to-date (5) Automatically display data provided by individuals to 911 call takers for all types of phones (Landline, Mobile, VoIP) when a call is placed to 911 from a registered and confirmed phone number (6) Support the delivery of community member information via a secure internet connection to all PSAPs within Massachusetts (7) service should work across all 9-1-1 call taking equipment in Massachusetts and allow for the easy transfer of information into Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) or Records Management Systems (RMS) (8) provide decision support to Emergency Management through the collection, aggregation, and visualization of community provided information via a hosted, web-based, geospatial interface (9) allow EIP data to be made available at a city, county, state, or national level to help protect Massachusetts community members wherever they are with similar EIP databases already established within the United States  (10) allow local communities the ability to tailor data collected based on their unique regional requirements (11) make data available to first responders (12) be designed to work in today’s environment or future NG9-1-1 systems.

(c) Public safety and Emergency Management agencies shall make reasonable efforts to publicize the Emergency Information Program (EIP). Means of publicizing the database may include, but are not limited to, pamphlets, social media, neighborhood watch programs, community policing programs, television, municipal notification systems and websites.

(d) When special needs information is made available with the 911 call, the telecommunicator shall, where appropriate, relay that information to responding personnel.

(e) The information gathered as part of EIP shall remain strictly confidential. The information shall be used only to provide assistance to 911 telecommunicators, first responders, and Emergency Management personnel. No public safety worker shall knowingly violate this confidentiality clause.

(f) Citizens electing to participate in EIP must be advised that the provision of special needs information will not result in preferential treatment.

SECTION 2.  This act shall take effect upon its passage.