Concerned About Privacy
This letter (click here) is the latest in a series of letters from SAMHSA asking for the Caller Detail on all callers to 1-800-SUICIDE. We have refused to turn this data over and purge it regularly. This is why we are concerned about the federal government owning the nation's suicide hotline and having access to the data on the callers.
The reason we are concerned is because if this data were in the hands of the federal government, there would be the temptation to create a blacklist of repeat callers to potentially eliminate applicants from applying for life insurance, high risk jobs, such as air traffic controller, pilot and other jobs. If a person was considered high risk this may prevent someone who went through a troubled period in their life but dealt with it, then became healthy and now wishes to advance themselves may find it impossible to get the needed clearance due to having called the suicide hotline a few times a number of years ago. At the very least the perception of the calling public will be affected in the negative by the simple fact the federal government has access to the data even if they never use it or intend to use it.
We ask the federal government this one question...Why does the federal government need to own the nation's suicide hotline? If it is concerned about continuity as they have represented in the past, then all they need to do is continually fund it as they do the other national crisis hotlines that they do not own or have access to the data such as the National Domestic Violence Hotline for Women.