HARRISBURG, Pa. (KYW Newsradio) — Gov. Josh Shapiro signed three executive orders on Wednesday aimed at updating and expanding protections and services for people with disabilities in Pennsylvania.
The executive orders modernize and update Pennsylvania’s Developmental Disabilities Council and create a commission of people who he said represent the full breadth of the community. That includes people with intellectual, developmental or physical disabilities, autism and the deaf and the blind.
“Taken together, all three of these executive orders will strengthen protections for people with disabilities. It will improve commonwealth services available to them far too often,” said Shapiro.
“Decisions are made about people with disabilities, not with them. That changes today here in Pennsylvania.”
A third executive order directs state agencies to exceed compliance with non-discrimination laws, including protecting personal data of people with disabilities.
“I know many of you are worried that the administration in Washington is trying to create a national database of people with disabilities,” said the governor.
“Hear me on this. We will not let them get a hold of your private personal information, and the action I am taking today helps protect against them.”
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services had to walk back a plan to collect private data to create an autism database, after outcry from advocates like Erin Lopes, who said that plan left families like hers with a lot of questions and no clear answers coming from Washington.
“How would the privacy and civil rights of autistic individuals and their families be protected?” she asked. “How would this very sensitive data be used, and how would a national registry protect individuals with autism from bias and from being excluded?”
HHS officials said they were trying to compile data to research potential causes of autism.
