Upcoming Encryption

[ryolsen8]

It seems Saint Paul PD made the switch to encrypted mains this morning at 8:00. Sorry to add another agency to the list…

Yes - today was the planned switch, unfortunately…

 

[KD0FEO]

Mille Lacs County radioed that on 3/5/26 at 7am they are switching to Law 1 Encrypted. It was later mentioned that they will only be on encryption until 3/6/26 at 4am. I fear they may be testing and making the switch soon.

 

[Pcpro745]

Mille Lacs County radioed that on 3/5/26 at 7am they are switching to Law 1 Encrypted. It was later mentioned that they will only be on encryption until 3/6/26 at 4am. I fear they may be testing and making the switch soon.

Man i thought he would be one of the last ones to go with how he talks.

 

[KD0FEO]

Man i thought he would be one of the last ones to go with how he talks.

Confirmed that Mille Lacs switched to encryption on their main dispatch this morning at 7am, there goes another one. The new talkgroup is 43242.

 

[Pcpro745]

Confirmed that Mille Lacs switched to encryption on their main dispatch this morning at 7am, there goes another one. The new talkgroup is 43242.

So it wasnt temporary?

 

[KD0FEO]

So it wasnt temporary?

It was radioed as temporary, they were encrypted from 7am on 3/5 to 4am on 3/6. They were unencrypted for 3 hours and then dispatched the switchover.

 

[Pcpro745]

It was radioed as temporary, they were encrypted from 7am on 3/5 to 4am on 3/6. They were unencrypted for 3 hours and then dispatched the switchover.

Dang that sucks.

 

[JDKelley]

Encrypting side channels for tactical work is necessary to be sure, but encrypting regular dispatch channels is not. Time for the state law makers to put a stop to this in the name of the public right to know.

Problem is, there is no public "right to know."

I defy you to find where in American law (at any level!) such right is codified.

In order to properly function, it is necessary for a government to be able to keep secrets - which is why FOIA requests can be denied. The problem comes when they get enthusiastic about such, realizing that we don't have a positive "right" to know anything, and acting upon that.

What we have is access to information, reinforced by 250 years of tradition. But that's not a "right," not by any stretch of the imagination.

The press may (theoretically) have free access to the government, that doesn't mean the government has to do anything in front of them.

And this may be a case of "reactionary encryption," where the cops get tired of the ambulance-chasers and trauma junkies getting there before they do themselves, and contaminating the scene. I can see how that would be a problem - but that can be handled individually - arrest a few, and word will get around. The charge can be obstruction of justice (by contaminating a crime scene.)

I'll try again
Ok so i tried multiple times to figure out to properly program my g5 with all the fire tone outs over p25 from orange county ny fire paging.
I guess there is a lot of overlapping issues, for example 36-14 & 36-15 are both the same tone13 & tone10 645hz-559hz.
My g5 constantly crashed after programming all the available tone outs. so I deleted all the doubles, and it's fine now.
but my million $ question is I played around with the tone out protocol, by default in pps under p25T, it's 1 second then 2 second. But in reality the tone outs are 1 sec then 3 sec.
And i played around with the protocol settings & i think i messed it up, and now nothing comes through the pager.
it sounds like it's a 1 second 3 second then 1.4 sec gap then 1.5 second 3 second for a fire department with a siren tone out, based on recordings i took from fd paging. ( meaning 2 sets of two tones).
maybe I'm having it all wrong can someone break it down in detail on exactly how to set up the protocol of the P25T tone outs.
also sometimes multiple departments are being paged and I'm not sure the GAP needed.
& 1 last question what is the 3rd interesting tone for 36 Coordinator⁩s after their 2 tone

Also the north tower, sounds garbled & choppy on the g5, but has wider area coverage when driving around the county.
but the south tower, sounds a little better (also not like old school analog). But has less reception coverage when driving around the county. Any solutions? Because if I program both towers with all control channels, only site 1 gets picked even if site 2 will sound better at that spot.

I have a unication g5 700/800 uhf-D. that's why I'm trying tone outs over fd paging p25T, & not over the analog vhf since I have a uhf g5

 

[KD0FEO]

I am now ultimately confused, Mille Lacs has switched their dispatch back to the unencrypted main today resuming traffic on 43248. There was also a new unencrypted talkgroup 43262 introduced today in their range. I have stored the talkgroup and awaiting traffic on it to discover what it's used for and have it added to the DB. I am not exactly sure what they are up to.

 

[Pcpro745]

I am now ultimately confused, Mille Lacs has switched their dispatch back to the unencrypted main today resuming traffic on 43248. There was also a new unencrypted talkgroup 43262 introduced today in their range. I have stored the talkgroup and awaiting traffic on it to discover what it's used for and have it added to the DB. I am not exactly sure what they are up to.

Well thats weird. Either testing for future encryption or making sure they can toggle encryption on and off for events?

 

[KD0FEO]

Well thats weird. Either testing for future encryption or making sure they can toggle encryption on and off for events?

Mille Lacs Sheriff switched back to Encrypted this morning at 10:00 A.M. and radioed "use encrypted from here on out" to units, sounds like this is the official switch.

 

[bearcatrp]

That sucks. Another one bites the dust.

 

[Pcpro745]

Lame.

 

[KirumiTojo]

Looks like EMS in Fargo has gone almost fully encrypted now. Only a matter of time until FD goes encrypted and I'd imagine this'll carry over to ND SIRN statewide.

 

[KD0FEO]

Looks like EMS in Fargo has gone almost fully encrypted now. Only a matter of time until FD goes encrypted and I'd imagine this'll carry over to ND SIRN statewide.

I can understand law being encrypted to comply with the DOJ and PII requirements, I don't understand why Fire & EMS are starting to encrypt as well? Is there some new HIPPA compliance that is going to require all Fire & EMS dispatches to switch to encrypted as well? Are these agencies just being petty and doing it because they can?

 

[AB5ID]

I don't understand why Fire & EMS are starting to encrypt as well?

Nobody tells them they can't; it's becoming more and more frequent, and expense is not a very big obstacle anymore.

 

[KirumiTojo]

I can understand law being encrypted to comply with the DOJ and PII requirements, I don't understand why Fire & EMS are starting to encrypt as well? Is there some new HIPPA compliance that is going to require all Fire & EMS dispatches to switch to encrypted as well? Are these agencies just being petty and doing it because they can?

From an article that Minot Daily News posted in December:
"This milestone means police officers, firefighters, EMS and other first responders across the state will soon benefit from a unified, encrypted, and reliable radio communication network"

 

[box23]

Is there some new HIPPA compliance that is going to require all Fire & EMS dispatches to switch to encrypted as well?

The item you are referencing is the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 which is abbreviated as HIPAA. No hippopotamus or the like involved.

To answer your question, no. There was an update which was made to the HIPAA Privacy Rule in January 2025 which appears to still be under revision but includes cybersecurity focused changes. There is a reference in the rule to encrypting ePHI (electronic Protected Health Information) when at rest as well as transit but is referring to data and does not change any requirements related to radio communication.

As before, incidental disclosures, what is and is not Protected Health Information, what is and is not a Covered Entity, and the reason a piece of PHI is being disclosed, all apply. In general, very little PHI should be disclosed regularly over the air on an EMS dispatch channel/talkgroup. Even when communicating to a hospital a robust report can be given with little disclosed PHI. Will the staff be happy with what they get, maybe not, but it's also not EMS's problem or responsibility.

 

[mmckenna]

I can understand law being encrypted to comply with the DOJ and PII requirements, I don't understand why Fire & EMS are starting to encrypt as well? Is there some new HIPPA compliance that is going to require all Fire & EMS dispatches to switch to encrypted as well? Are these agencies just being petty and doing it because they can?

Box covered it well, but I wasn't aware of the proposed changes. Glad to see they are keeping up with the times.

HIPAA has never previously had a requirement for encrypting radio traffic. It was very specific to let first responders do what they needed to do and not hamper medical care. But now that encryption is cheap and common place, there really isn't any reason at all not to encrypt this PHI/PII like they do on the law enforcement side. People's private medical info, and whatever awful things they are going through that day, don't belong as personal entertainment for others.

I can tell you what -is- happening, at least local to me:

Social Media, and now AI slop. Locally a fire dept responded to a medical call that ended up in a fatality. Thanks to some moron with a scanner and a social media account, they posted the name/address of the deceased person before the local agency could properly identify them and do the proper notifications to family. Family found out through Social Media.
No family deserves that. Doesn't matter what someone's idea of entertainment is.

Large wildland fire that was threatening a lot of homes. Thanks to certain radio webpages that post frequencies, as well as TX frequencies and PL tones, the Baofeng army decided that it was perfectly OK to start popping up on the fire department channels giving advice, asking questions, generally getting in the way of the people trying to do their jobs.

 

[KirumiTojo]

Box covered it well, but I wasn't aware of the proposed changes. Glad to see they are keeping up with the times.

HIPAA has never previously had a requirement for encrypting radio traffic. It was very specific to let first responders do what they needed to do and not hamper medical care. But now that encryption is cheap and common place, there really isn't any reason at all not to encrypt this PHI/PII like they do on the law enforcement side. People's private medical info, and whatever awful things they are going through that day, don't belong as personal entertainment for others.

I can tell you what -is- happening, at least local to me:

Social Media, and now AI slop. Locally a fire dept responded to a medical call that ended up in a fatality. Thanks to some moron with a scanner and a social media account, they posted the name/address of the deceased person before the local agency could properly identify them and do the proper notifications to family. Family found out through Social Media.
No family deserves that. Doesn't matter what someone's idea of entertainment is.

Large wildland fire that was threatening a lot of homes. Thanks to certain radio webpages that post frequencies, as well as TX frequencies and PL tones, the Baofeng army decided that it was perfectly OK to start popping up on the fire department channels giving advice, asking questions, generally getting in the way of the people trying to do their jobs.

I have a pretty good feeling that North Dakota and also probably why Minnesota is encrypting everything is because of a certain independent journalist (not naming names but you all possibly know who I'm talking about) who's known to release info before it's allowed to be released publicly. Could be wrong though.