The Florida Senate

937.024  Birth records of missing children; registrars' duties.--

(1)  The Office of Vital Statistics shall:

(a)  Collect each month a list of missing children as provided by the Department of Law Enforcement. The list shall be designed to include such information as the Office of Vital Statistics deems necessary for the identification of missing children born in this state.

(b)  Compile from the information collected pursuant to paragraph (a) a list of missing children born in this state.

(c)  In its centralized records in Jacksonville, flag the birth certificate or birth record of each identified missing child in such a manner that all employees of the office shall know that the certificate or record is that of a child reported as missing.

(d)  Recall each missing child's birth certificate or birth record from the local registrar of vital statistics in the county of the missing child's birth.

(e)  Collect each month a list of missing children who have been located, as provided by the Department of Law Enforcement's Florida Crime Information Center; identify which, if any, of the located children were born in this state; and remove its flags from the birth certificates or birth records of such children accordingly.

(2)(a)  A copy of the birth certificate or information concerning the birth record of any child whose record has been flagged or recalled pursuant to paragraph (1)(c) or paragraph (1)(d) may not be provided by the State Registrar or any local registrar in response to any inquiry, unless the flag has been removed pursuant to paragraph (1)(e).

(b)  When a copy of the birth certificate or information concerning the birth record of a child whose record has been flagged or recalled is requested in person, the person accepting the request shall immediately notify his or her supervisor. The person making the request shall complete a form supplying his or her name, address, telephone number, social security number, and relationship to the missing child and the name, address, and birth date of the missing child. The driver's license of the person making the request, if available, or some other proper form of identification, shall be photocopied and returned to the person. The person shall be informed that a copy of the certificate will be delivered to the person by mail. The registrar's personnel shall note the physical description of the person making the request, and, when the person leaves the registrar's office, the supervisor shall immediately notify the Department of Law Enforcement's Missing Children Information Clearinghouse, which must then notify the local law enforcement agency of the request and the information obtained under this paragraph. The registrar shall retain the form completed by the person making the request.

(c)  When a copy of the birth certificate of a child whose record has been flagged or recalled is requested in writing, the person receiving the request shall immediately notify his or her supervisor. The supervisor shall immediately notify the Department of Law Enforcement's Missing Children Information Clearinghouse, which must then notify the local law enforcement agency of the request. If requested, the registrar shall provide a copy of the written request to law enforcement. The registrar shall retain the original written request.

(3)  This section does not preclude the Office of Vital Statistics from flagging and recalling birth certificates or birth records of children reported missing directly to the office by a local law enforcement agency or from removing such flags from certificates or records based upon notification from the Department of Law Enforcement's Missing Children Information Clearinghouse or local law enforcement.

(4)  Upon notification by a local law enforcement agency or by the Department of Law Enforcement that a child born outside the state is missing, the State Registrar of Vital Statistics shall notify the corresponding officer in the state where the child was born that the child has been reported missing.

History.--s. 2, ch. 87-384; s. 66, ch. 96-388.