Add Data Field for Emergency Contact Information

[ddemaio]

I'm submitting a feature request. Inputting emergency contact information is important as we recently experienced at the openSUSE Conference where a speaker collapsed and we needed to contact the person's family. I would recommend that the data field be a mandatory item for registration and should include a name (first and last), phone number and email address of the next of kin. While the data is only good as the person who fills it out, it is vital information for when a tragedy happens. Perhaps having a small sentence under the heading of Emergency Information that says "Please input your emergency contact information so we can contact your family, friend or next of kin should something happen while at our event."

Expanding on this, it might also be important to add a citizenship question as we experienced this to be helpful. Just in case the embassy needs to be contacted, we have the information. However, this could be optional and not mandatory.

[kergon]

On Mon, Jun 17, 2019 at 01:55:06AM -0700, Douglas DeMaio wrote:

I'm submitting a feature request. Inputting emergency contact information is important as we recently experienced at the openSUSE Conference where a speaker collapsed and we needed to contact the person's family. I would recommend that the data field be a mandatory item for registration and should include a name (first and last), phone number and email address of the next of kin. While the data is only good as the person who fills it out, it is vital information for when a tragedy happens. Perhaps having a small sentence under the heading of Emergency Information that says "Please input your emergency contact information so we can contact your family, friend or next of kin should something happen while at our event."

Not all conferences will be comfortable storing this sort of personal information - not least because the information "belongs" to a person who has not themselves registered in the system or given you their consent for the information being stored. Must the person concerned be notified and be given the option not to have their information stored? Or does the person entering the information need to provide such consent by proxy? If they didn't actually obtain that consent, who is liable? The law may vary by country.

Alasdair

[ddemaio]

Not all conferences will be comfortable storing this sort of personal information - not least because the information "belongs" to a person who has not themselves registered in the system or given you their consent for the information being stored. Must the person concerned be notified and be given the option not to have their information stored? Or does the person entering the information need to provide such consent by proxy? If they didn't actually obtain that consent, who is liable? The law may vary by country. Alasdair

I think it should be a voluntary options with some sort of comment like I give consent to contact my emergency contact should something happen. Maybe it's better to have it in their profile with the willingness to share it with the conference organizers of whatever conference they attend. That way they are in control of the data and can delete it if they want. It would be good for a reminder option to be added to the questions section about this.

[differentreality]

Sounds like this can be part of a conference survey during registration, instead of a hard-coded field. What do you think?

[ddemaio]

@differentreality I think that could probably work as well. I noticed though that it only gives after and during conference options. If there was a before option and a survey attached to the registration, that could work.

[differentreality]

@ddemaio there's also the during_registration option, like it's used here https://events.opensuse.org/conferences/Dublin/register

[ddemaio]

Thank you @differentreality. I added the questions and it looks like this solution can work. Thanks again!