Bill > A1543

This bill requires certain personal identifying information and sensitive data on vehicle accident reports—such as minors' names, Social Security numbers, driver's license numbers, birth dates, personal contact details, street addresses, vehicle identification numbers (VINs), and insurance policy numbers—to be redacted when the reports are made available to the general public under New Jersey's open records law, known as the Open Public Records Act (OPRA). Unredacted full reports will remain accessible only to authorized requestors, which include individuals involved in the accident, their attorneys and insurance companies, law enforcement agencies, and entities permitted under the federal Driver's Privacy Protection Act (DPPA), a federal law that regulates and restricts the disclosure of personal information from state motor vehicle records. Authorized recipients are strictly prohibited from publicly disclosing this sensitive information without the written consent of the involved party or their legal representative, and record custodians must maintain a log of all unredacted reports provided. Furthermore, the legislation establishes progressive civil penalties for authorized requestors who knowingly and willfully make unauthorized public disclosures of this vehicle accident report information, starting at $250 for a first offense, $500 for a second offense, and $1,000 for each subsequent offense.