Bill to require release of phone location in emergency clears House

State Rep. Rebecca Petty, R-Rogers, presents House Bill 1315 Friday.
State Rep. Rebecca Petty, R-Rogers, presents House Bill 1315 Friday.

The state House of Representatives on Friday passed a bill that would require cellphone providers to release data revealing a cellphone's location to authorities who request it while investigating an emergency.

House Bill 1315, sponsored by Rep. Rebecca Petty, R-Rogers, would be called the Kelsey Smith Act if it becomes law. The name honors Smith, an 18-year-old Kansas woman who was kidnapped from a Target parking lot in 2007. The cellphone carrier did not release the location of Smith's phone for four days; her body was found a short time later when the information was disclosed, Petty told the representatives.

The House voted 70-8 in favor of the bill.

Petty, whose 12-year-old daughter was kidnapped and murdered in 1999, called it a critical tool that law enforcement needs to find missing people.

"The not knowing destroys families," she said, adding later that she did not believe there were privacy concerns because no information about calls or texts would be required to be released. "All we're doing is trying to find the location of that phone and that person who is missing."

Rep. John Walker, D-Little Rock, spoke against the bill, calling it an "invasion" of civil liberties and a violation of the U.S. Constitution's 4th Amendment.

"Any policeman anywhere who has any suspicion or who says he has a suspicion may be able to call upon that telephone company or some other party and get the whereabouts of a telephone," he said. "And that in essence is the beginning of a violation of the 4th Amendment as I see it."

HB1315 requires a provider to reveal the phone's location information if a law enforcement agency requests it so authorities can "respond to a call for emergency services or in an emergency situation that involves the risk of death or serious physical harm."

Petty said 17 other states have Kelsey Smith laws and that they have seen successes, including a prevented suicide and a missing baby found in Kansas and a child rescued from a perpetrator in Tennessee.

Upcoming Events