Pa. lawmakers seek to issue child DNA identification kits via schools

HARRISBURG — A bill introduced in the state Senate last week would provide schools with fingerprint and DNA collection kits to give to families as part of an effort to better identify missing children.

The information collected would not be part of any database, and would be used only by parents or by law enforcement in order to help identify or locate their child in an emergency.

“In a nightmare scenario in which a child goes missing, any parent would want every tool at their disposal to make sure their son or daughter is located and returned safely,” Sen. Camera Bartolotta, R-Washington, said in the bill announcement.

Ms. Bartolotta is sponsoring the bill along with Sen. Scott Martin, R-Lancaster, who said in the announcement that “this tool, while hopefully never used, will be critical in helping law enforcement locate a missing child.”

Under the legislation, the Pennsylvania Department of Education would provide schools — public, private and charters — with identification kits to be made available to all children in the first grade.

Schools would track the number of kits issued, but not retain any information about parents or children; parents would have the option of submitting their child’s identification kit to law enforcement.

Although the bill does not specify the sourcing of the kits or cost, fingerprint and DNA kits are available in mass quantities for $2.95 each through the National Child Identification Program, which Mr. Martin’s office pointed to as a likely source of the kits.

Known as the Child Protection Act, the bill is part of a national expansion of child safety measures that began as the Amber Alert. According to the bill sponsors, 32 states have some kind of child identification program.

Publicly funded schools in Pennsylvania had over 118,000 first-graders in the 2021-22 school year, according to education department data.

According to FBI data, 337,195 missing persons reports were filed nationally in 2021 for children under 18, with 95% of the missing juveniles reported as runaways.