Two US senators have put forward a bill to the country’s Congress calling for regulation on what medical devices can or can’t be used around devices and areas containing sensitive information, demanding action from the US Director of National Intelligence.
The bill comes after the US Government Accountability Office (USGAO) published a report finding that some workers were denied access to some of the most secretive and sensitive facilities for handling classified information as a result of their personal medical devices such as pacemakers.
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Typically, external electronic devices are not allowed in what the US Government calls a sensitive compartmented information facility (SCIF), including medical devices. Now, Democrat US senators Peter Welch for Vermont and Bob Casey for Pennsylvania have put forward legislation calling for the US government to clarify and update what medical devices are allowed in secure areas.
An excerpt from the bill reads: “Beginning on the date of the enactment of this Act, the head of any covered entity shall begin developing and maintaining, for each secure compartmented information facility managed by such covered entity, a ledger to track the approval and denial of requests for electronic medical device use, which shall include a case-by-case annotation of each approval or denial of an electronic medical device and statistics summarising the number of electronic medical devices approved for unrestricted use and limited use and devices that were denied.”
The report released by the USGAO in January of this year previously found that there was essentially no standardisation across any of the US SCIFs when it came to how staff dependent on a medical device would be allowed into various facilities, with the decisions ultimately resting on the head of the individual facility.
In the report prompting the Senate bill, the USGAO said: “GAO recommendations include that the Director of National Intelligence develop guidance for agencies that identify minimum specifications for common accessibility concerns, address accessibility in inspections, and include consistent procedures for agencies to evaluate assistive technologies or medical devices.”
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