HARRISBURG – Free child identification kits could be made available to PA parents to help relocate missing children under legislation introduced by Sen. Scott Martin of Lancaster & Berks Counties and Sen. Camera Bartolotta of Beaver County. Senate Bill 460, known as the Child Reunification Act, would give parents a critical tool to help law enforcement identify missing children and return them safely to their families. The kits would include ink-less fingerprinting materials, DNA collection swabs, and other information that can be used to help identify a child in case of an emergency. Both lawmakers emphasized that the personal information collected in the kits would only be held by parents and would not be entered into any sort of state or national database. The bill prohibits school districts from retaining the information and specifies that the ID kits are not a public record. Under the bill, the kits would be distributed by school districts for all students in first grade at no cost to parents. Bartolotta and Martin have been working on the legislation for several months since they first announced the plan in October. The legislation was designated Senate Bill 460 in recognition of the estimated 460,000 children per year who go missing in the United States.
SEN. CAMERA BARTOLOTTA
SEN. SCOTT MARTIN