California Rescuers Try Detailed 911 Feature

Struggling to keep track of the frail and disabled who may need extra help in an emergency, San Ramon Valley firefighters are set to team with an East Bay Internet company on an unusual high-tech plan - an online disaster registry that would, for a fee, store residents' personal details.

But whether residents would pay for the privilege of giving their health status, living situation and other intimate information to an untested firm, whether it can safeguard it, and whether the registry would help much in a major catastrophe are questions that hover over the concept.

The district's board voted last week to contract with Berkeley-based SMART911, which would charge residents $2.20 a month per phone line to register their names, addresses, home details, disabilities, medications and other data.

The information would appear to fire dispatchers with a 911 call. In a disaster, they could make maps of residents who might need rescue.

The service is in technical trials and has never been deployed, said company president Alan North. Emergency officials say a few other vendors promote similar services, but the fire district may become the first agency in the Bay Area to buy into one.

"When they call 911, we normally get their address and their telephone number. This service gives us a targeted response instead of this sort of broad-brush approach," said Richard Price, assistant fire chief with the district, which covers nearly 150,000 residents.

"If we had an earthquake and we wanted everybody that met particular criteria non-ambulatory, or blind we could query the conditions we wanted and produce a list."

A $3.30-per-month "enhanced" service would cover all phone numbers in a home and allow residents to add photos, which could help police spot relatives who disappear or wander off.

Contra Costa County emergency officials say they are eager to see how it works and could adopt it or a similar Web-based registry if San Ramon Valley's system answers their concerns.

Among the biggest are privacy and popularity.

Some critics and emergency officials are dubious. Police and firefighters could be too taxed in a catastrophe to attend to lists of vulnerable people, and critics fear a voluntary registry may offer little more than false comfort. Many residents fear drawing up a vulnerability roadmap should the data fall into criminal laps. And if power is out, how does the Internet company make its data available to the 911 folks?

"In the wrong hands, that information is a hit list," said Ana-Marie Jones, executive director of the Oakland-based Collaborating Agencies Responding to Disasters, or CARD. "Some people may be willing to pay, but ... you will run into the thing you always run into the trust issue."

Recent attempts in San Ramon to catalogue the city's vulnerable residents met with leery distrust, and local officials acknowledge the challenge in promoting any kind of voluntary registry.

"For years we've been telling them, 'Don't part with that information. Keep it very close to your vest.' Now we're telling them, 'By the way, we want you to give that to us,'" said Greg Gilbert, Danville's director of emergency preparedness.

Price said the fire district has checked the company's background and is satisfied, initially, with its privacy policy. North, the company president, said SMART911 would mind the data and "only intentionally release it to 911 under the conditions the subscriber wants."

North said his use of the word "intentionally" was meant to account for Uncle Sam.

"If the feds come in and provide a court order saying we have to release information, we're going to fight it, but it's the feds," he said. "The people that are information paranoid are going to be information paranoid . . . Some people will sign up and some people won't."