Massachusetts General Laws ch. 90 sec. 63 – Collection and maintenance of traffic stop data; use and storage of data; preparation of analysis and report; annual public report; public hearings
Section 63. (a) The registry of motor vehicles shall collect data from any issued Massachusetts Uniform Citation regarding the following information: (i) identifying characteristics of the individuals who receive a warning or citation or who are arrested, including the age, race and gender of the individual; (ii) the traffic infraction; (iii) the date and time of the offense and the municipality in which the offense was committed; (iv) whether a search was initiated as a result of the stop; and (v) whether the stop resulted in a warning, citation or arrest. The registry of motor vehicles shall maintain statistical information on the data required by this section and shall report that information annually to the secretary of public safety and security.
Terms Used In Massachusetts General Laws ch. 90 sec. 63
- Arrest: Taking physical custody of a person by lawful authority.
- Equitable: Pertaining to civil suits in "equity" rather than in "law." In English legal history, the courts of "law" could order the payment of damages and could afford no other remedy. See damages. A separate court of "equity" could order someone to do something or to cease to do something. See, e.g., injunction. In American jurisprudence, the federal courts have both legal and equitable power, but the distinction is still an important one. For example, a trial by jury is normally available in "law" cases but not in "equity" cases. Source: U.S. Courts
- Joint committee: Committees including membership from both houses of teh legislature. Joint committees are usually established with narrow jurisdictions and normally lack authority to report legislation.
- Testimony: Evidence presented orally by witnesses during trials or before grand juries.
(b) Data or information collected, transmitted or received under this section shall be used only for statistical purposes and shall not contain information that may reveal the identity of any individual who is stopped or any law enforcement officer.
(c) The secretary of public safety and security shall maintain a standardized process to facilitate data collection for law enforcement agencies and procedures for law enforcement officials to collect data under this section. The failure of a law enforcement officer to collect such data shall not affect the validity of the underlying stop.
(d) Annually, the secretary of public safety and security shall transmit the necessary data collected by the registry of motor vehicles to a university, non-profit organization or institution, whether private or public, in the commonwealth with experience in the analysis of such data for annual preparation of an analysis and report of its findings. Upon receipt, the secretary shall immediately make the annual analysis and report, including any aggregate analysis of the data, publicly available by publishing such annual analysis and report online and shall transmit a copy of such annual analysis and report to the attorney general, the department of state police, the Massachusetts Chiefs of Police Association Incorporated, and the clerks of the house of representatives and the senate. The secretary shall, in consultation with the attorney general, if such annual analysis and report suggest that a law enforcement agency appears to have engaged in racial or gender profiling: (i) require the law enforcement agency for a period of 1 year to collect information, including the reason for the stop, in addition to the other information already required under the Massachusetts Uniform Citation, on all traffic stops, including those not resulting in a warning, citation or arrest; and (ii) mandate implicit bias training using best practices.
(e) Notwithstanding any general or special law to the contrary, data collected, transmitted or received pursuant to subsections (a) and (d) shall be stored in a properly secured system in a cryptographically encrypted form and shall only be provided upon the execution of a written confidentiality agreement with the secretary of public safety and security that is protective of privacy and prohibits the further distribution of the data; provided, however, that nothing in the confidentiality agreement shall prohibit the publication of aggregate analysis of the data. Unencrypted data shall not be accessed, copied or otherwise communicated without the active concurrence and the express written approval of the secretary. Any processing of the data collected or received pursuant to this section shall only result in aggregated information that does not reveal the identity of any person or law enforcement officer.
(f) The secretary of public safety and security shall publish an annual public report, derived from the data used for the annual analysis and report prepared under subsection (d), containing aggregate numbers, listed by municipality and law enforcement agency, for the information categories identified in subsection (a); provided, however, that data concerning age shall be aggregated into categories for persons aged 29 and younger and aged 30 and older; provided further, that data concerning time of day shall be aggregated into categories for offenses committed from 12:01 am to 6:00 am, from 6:01 am to 12:00 pm, from 12:01 pm to 6:00 pm and from 6:01 pm to 12:00 am. The secretary shall take reasonable steps to ensure that any information in the report cannot be used, directly or indirectly, either alone or together with other information, to identify or derive information about any stop made by a particular law enforcement officer or any individual involved in a stop made by a law enforcement officer. The secretary shall make the information contained in the report available to the public online in machine readable format.
(g) Not later than 30 days following the date on which the annual analysis and report under subsection (d) is received by the secretary of public safety and security, the secretary shall hold not fewer than 3 public hearings in different regions of the commonwealth to present the annual analysis and report and to accept public testimony regarding the report. The executive office of public safety and security shall provide the public with not less than 14 days prior notice of each hearing by publishing the hearing date on the executive office’s website and any official social media accounts and by providing written notice to the joint committee on public safety and security, the joint committee on the judiciary and the clerks of the house of representatives and the senate.
(h) A law enforcement agency, as defined in section 1 of chapter 6E, shall not engage in racial or other profiling. The attorney general may bring a civil action in the superior court for injunctive or other equitable relief to enforce this subsection. For the purposes of this subsection, ”racial or other profiling” shall mean differential treatment by a law enforcement officer based on actual or perceived race, color, ethnicity, national origin, immigration or citizenship status, religion, gender, gender identity or sexual orientation in conducting a law enforcement action, whether intentional or evidenced by statistically-significant data showing disparate treatment; provided, however, that ”racial or other profiling” shall not include the use of such characteristics, in combination with other factors, to apprehend a specific suspect based on a description that is individualized, timely and reliable.