This House Concurrent Resolution recognizes June 15, 2018, as “Delaware Elder Abuse Awareness Day” and encourages all of Delaware’s citizens to learn about how to protect and nurture our elderly citizens.
This Act creates a Delaware Commission on Irish Heritage and Culture.
This Act will create the Biometric Privacy Protection Act and Geolocation Privacy Protection Act in Title 6 of the Delaware Code to give Delaware’s citizens important protections with respect to the collection, storage, use, and disclosure of their unique biometric information (such as fingerprints, voiceprints, and retinal and facial scans) and, with respect to their use of mobile devices, geolocation information that can identify Biometrics are biological and behavioral characteristics, such as fingerprints, voiceprints, and retinal and facial scans, that uniquely identify a person, and they are increasingly being collected from Delaware’s citizens and used for a variety of purposes, including marketing, employment, and security. Biometrics are among our most sensitive personal information, potentially more valuable to identity thieves, hackers, and marketers than even Social Security numbers, and need to be protected as such. Currently under Delaware law, biometric information can be collected without an individual’s knowledge or consent, and a person capturing or collecting biometric information is not required to identify what biometric information is being collected, why it’s being collected, or how long it will be kept. Delaware law also contains no protections for individuals to prevent their biometric information from being sold or transferred to third parties. The use of biometrics offers great promise for improving the lives of Delaware’s citizens in a variety of ways, but the sensitivity and importance of biometric information requires that there be protections for Delawareans with regard to the collection and use of their biometric information. The Biometric Privacy Protection Act will expand the legal protections available under Delaware law to individuals relating to the collection and use of their biometric identifiers and biometric information. Among its provisions, the Biometric Information Privacy Protection Act: (1) Requires persons in possession of biometric data to develop and make publicly available written retention schedules and guidelines for keeping biometric information; (2) Requires persons to provide timely, reasonable notice and obtain informed, affirmative consent before acquiring, collecting, storing, or capturing biometric data; (3) Prohibits persons from selling or profiting from an individual’s biometric data; (4) Prohibits persons from disclosing or disseminating an individual’s biometric data except under specified circumstances, which include an individual’s informed, affirmative consent to the disclosure; and (5) Requires persons in possession of biometric data to implement and maintain reasonable procedures and practices to protect the biometric data and prevent its unauthorized disclosure. Geolocation information is data that can be used to determine the precise location of smartphones and other mobile devices and, by extension, the individuals carrying them. Such information can be used to track the users carrying those devices wherever they go. Location-based applications currently can make use of geolocation information on an individual’s mobile device without explicitly informing the individual that the geolocation information is being collected, used, stored, or disclosed, why it is being collected, used, stored, or disclosed, or to whom it is being disclosed, and without obtaining the individual’s consent to the collection, use, storage, or disclosure of the geolocation information. The Geolocation Privacy Protection Act will create legal protections for Delaware’s citizens relating to the collection, use, storage, or disclosure of the geolocation information on their mobile devices, by prohibiting persons from collecting, using, storing, or disclosing such information unless they first obtain an individual’s affirmative express consent after providing the individual with clear, prominent, and accurate notice that: (1) Tells the individual that the individual’s geolocation information is being collected, used, stored, or disclosed; (2) Informs the individual of the specific purposes for which the geolocation information is being collected, used, stored, or disclosed; (3) Informs the individual of the identity of any third parties to whom the geolocation information is being disclosed; and (4) Provides the individual with a hyperlink or other easy access to the geolocation information collected, used, stored, or disclosed. Both the Biometric Information Privacy Protection Act and the Geolocation Privacy Protection Act give the Consumer Protection Unit of the Department of Justice the authority to investigate and prosecute violations. There is no private right of action under the Biometric Information Privacy Protection Act or the Geolocation Privacy Protection Act. Both the Biometric Information Privacy Protection Act or the Geolocation Privacy Protection Act provide that their provisions do not apply to certain specified persons or entities or in certain specific situations. This Act provides that it will become effective January 1 following its enactment into law.
Delaware’s existing Criminal Code was adopted in 1973 and was based on the Model Penal Code. Since that time, the Criminal Code has quadrupled in size and expanded to other parts of the Code without consideration to the general effects of the change on the Criminal Code’s overall structure, its terminology, or its application, creating numerous inconsistencies, redundancies, ambiguities and contradictions. In 2014, the General Assembly established the Criminal Justice Improvement Committee to review opportunities for efficiencies in the Delaware Criminal Code, including identifying: “disproportionate, redundant, outdated, duplicative, or inefficient statutes” and “crimes that should or should not constitute potential jail time”. The Criminal Justice Improvement Committee Working Group was created to accomplished the Criminal Justice Improvement Committee’s stated goals and has worked diligently for the last three years, in concert with other criminal justice stakeholders, to restore the criminal code to a clear, readable, and proportional code. The recommendations found in their Final Report are the basis for this Act and its companion bill. This Act is one of two bills that seek to bring back clarity and consistency to the Criminal Code. This Act repeals and replaces Title 11, Part I, Chapters 1 through 15 of the Delaware Criminal Code and replaces it with an improved code that is easy to understand, consolidates offenses and introduces rational and proportional sentencing structures. This Act, and its companion bill, will take effect 20 months from the date it is signed, to allow for a smooth integration of the improved code into existing structures, give public and private criminal justice stakeholders an opportunity to familiarize themselves with the improved code, and provide an opportunity to develop for the first time model jury instructions and sentencing guidelines. A Commentary, which explains how the current criminal code relates to the improved code, will be publicly available during this transition period. The 20 months will also give time to introduce technical corrections bills that will make changes to the Code necessitated by the improved code (e.g., update cross references to Title 11, Part I, found in other Titles), as well as incorporate legislative decisions passed by the 148th and 149th General Assembly that were not captured by the improved code.
This Act substitutes gender neutral phrases for the ones currently contained in the State Song of Delaware. The proposed changes come at the request of Donn Devine, a retired Brigadier General in the Delaware National Guard and co-author of the State Song of Delaware, who believes that this new phrasing will make the song more relevant to future generations of Delawareans.
Delaware’s existing Criminal Code was adopted in 1973 and was based on the Model Penal Code. Since that time, the Criminal Code has quadrupled in size and expanded to other parts of the Code without consideration to the general effects of the change on the Criminal Code’s overall structure, its terminology, or its application, creating numerous inconsistencies, redundancies, ambiguities and contradictions. This Act is one of two bills that seek to bring back clarity and consistency to the Criminal Code.
Recognizing the beneficial value of being in nature and fishing, this bill expands the list of fishing license exceptions to include residents of long term care facilities who are accompanied by the facility's controlling person.
The Act amends Section 916 of Title 11 of the Code so that the statutory penalties for the crime of home improvement fraud increase as the amount of the loss to the victim increases, using the same scale applicable to Theft under Section 841 of Title 11 and New Home Construction Fraud under Section 917 of Title 11. Like Theft under Section 841 of Title 11, the amendment also provides for an increase in the level of the offense for amounts under $50,000 where the victim is 62 years of age or older or an "adult who is impaired" or a "person with a disability" as defined in the Code. The Act also amends the definition of "home improvement contract" to provide that a victim's payment can be in any form, not just money, and to clarify that a "home improvement contract" includes all agreements for labor, services and materials to be furnished and performed under the home improvement contract.
This resolution proclaims May 2018 Cystic Fibrosis Awareness Month in Delaware.
This concurrent resolution proclaims May 9, 2018, as “Early Childhood Advocacy Day” to affirm the importance of quality early learning for every citizen and every sector of our State, to celebrate the accomplishments of the past year, and to rededicate ourselves to our shared responsibility for the construction and support of a Delaware early childhood system that will positively impact children, families, communities, and workforce and economic development across the State.
