[Congressional Bills 109th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 2695 Introduced in House (IH)]






109th CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                H. R. 2695

  To amend the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act to protect the 
  personally identifying information of victims of domestic violence, 
             dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                              May 26, 2005

  Ms. Moore of Wisconsin (for herself and Ms. Harris) introduced the 
   following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Financial 
                                Services

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
  To amend the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act to protect the 
  personally identifying information of victims of domestic violence, 
             dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Safe Housing Identity Exception for 
the Lives of Domestic Violence Victims Act'' or the ``SHIELD Act''.

SEC. 2. AMENDMENT TO THE MCKINNEY-VENTO HOMELESS ASSISTANCE ACT.

    Section 423(a) of the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act (42 
U.S.C. 11383(a)) is amended by adding at the end the following:
            ``(8) Confidentiality.--
                    ``(A) Housing assistance grants and programs.--In 
                the course of awarding grants or implementing programs 
                under this subsection, the Secretary shall instruct any 
                recipient or subgrantee not to disclose to any person, 
                agency, or entity any personally identifying 
                information about any client if the Secretary, 
                recipient, or subgrantee believes, based upon 
                reasonable evidence, that the client is--
                            ``(i) a victim of domestic violence, dating 
                        violence, sexual assault, or stalking;
                            ``(ii) the parent or guardian of a minor 
                        victim of domestic violence, dating violence, 
                        sexual assault, or stalking; or
                            ``(iii) the dependent or minor child of a 
                        victim of domestic violence, dating violence, 
                        sexual assault, or stalking.
                    ``(B) Other federal and state programs.--The 
                Secretary shall not require or ask a recipient or 
                subgrantee of any other Federal or State program to 
                disclose personally identifying information about any 
                clients if the persons, agencies, or entities 
                implementing those programs believe, based upon 
                reasonable evidence, that those clients are--
                            ``(i) victims of domestic violence, dating 
                        violence, sexual assault, or stalking;
                            ``(ii) the parents or guardians of minor 
                        victims of domestic violence, dating violence, 
                        sexual assault, or stalking; or
                            ``(iii) the dependents or minor children of 
                        victims of domestic violence, dating violence, 
                        sexual assault, or stalking.
                    ``(C) Homeless management information systems.--The 
                Secretary shall instruct any recipient or subgrantee 
                under this subsection or any recipient or subgrantee of 
                any other Federal or State program participating in any 
                homeless management information system funded in whole 
                or in part under this subsection that personally 
                identifying information about any client may only be 
                submitted to a homeless management information system 
                if the program seeking to disclose such information has 
                obtained informed, reasonably time-limited, written 
                consent from the client to whom the information 
                relates. The Secretary may require or ask any recipient 
                or subgrantee to share nonpersonally identifying data 
                in the aggregate regarding services to clients and 
                nonpersonally identifying demographic information in 
                order to comply with the data collection requirements 
                of homeless management information systems.
                    ``(D) Definition.--As used in this paragraph, the 
                term personally identifying information means 
                information from or about an individual that could be 
                used to identify such individual, including--
                            ``(i) first and last name;
                            ``(ii) a home or other physical address, 
                        including street name, name of city or town, 
                        and ZIP code;
                            ``(iii) an email address or other online 
                        contact information, such as an instant 
                        messaging user identifier or a screen name that 
                        reveals an individual's email address;
                            ``(iv) a telephone number;
                            ``(v) a social security number;
                            ``(vi) an Internet Protocol address or host 
                        name that identifies an individual;
                            ``(vii) a persistent identifier, such as a 
                        customer number held in a `cookie' or processor 
                        serial number, that is combined with other 
                        available data that identifies an individual; 
                        and
                            ``(viii) any other information, including 
                        grade point average, date of birth, academic or 
                        occupational interests, athletic or 
                        extracurricular interests, racial or ethnic 
                        background, or religious affiliation, that, in 
                        combination with any of the above, would serve 
                        to identify any individual.''.
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