Rep. Lynn Luker, R-Boise, told the House that at the end of this year’s regular legislative session, he had concerns about the child support enforcement bill, but his concerns have been put to rest by amendments to the bill that he helped craft. Luker went through the bill section by section, noting what the amendments do, from requiring registration with the court to a section on data security that requires that Idaho’s Health & Welfare director to set up a process to authenticate requests that come from foreign countries.

“The foreign country does not come in and reach into our database, but what they do is send in a request for a location,” Luker told the House. “That then is processed by the federal Office of Child Support Enforcement. They’re then told what state that person resides in. That person then comes to that state,” to enforce a judgment. At that point, the bill calls for “a second level of authentication.”

He said the amendments also require reporting to the Legislature regarding data security and monitoring of the process by the governor. Those are the amendments that came through the process, and make what I feel to be a better bill,” Luker said.