To Whom It May Concern:

I have been working as a registered nurse in Chicago for 7 years. On multiple occasions, a patient of mine who was a gunshot victim has told me they received death threats on their phone while they were lying vulnerable in their hospital bed. I have also waited out several hospital lockdowns related to violent crime.

Such instances are only more likely to occur when public news stations, websites, and apps like Citizen carelessly report the name of the hospital to which a victim is taken, after releasing enough information about the victim (time, location, surrounding circumstances) to make their identity known to the attackers.

When news stations, websites, and apps like Citizen release this sensitive information to the public with no repercussions, they place the victim's life at risk, they place hospital staff's lives at risk, and they place other, completely uninvolved patients' lives at risk.

I am petitioning to have a new law created in Illinois to penalize any news outlet, website, or app that publicly identifies the name of the hospital where anyone could find the victim of a reported violent crime, whether a shooting, stabbing, beating, strangling, et cetera.

While websites and apps like Citizen are public reporting platforms, their operators should bear the responsibility of implementing technology that can automatically detect these life-threatening violations of privacy, and delete or block the name of the hospital that was posted or shared.

Outlets and public platforms which violate this new law should be required to pay a fine.

Sicnerely, a concerned citizen and nurse
Diana