                                 CODE OF VIRGINIA

CHILD PORNOGRAPHY REGISTRY; MAINTENANCE; ACCESS; REQUIRED INFORMATION (§
19.2-390.3)

A. The Office of the Attorney General, in cooperation with the Department of
State Police, shall keep and maintain a Child Pornography Registry (the
Registry) to be located within the State Police, separate and apart from all
other records maintained by either department. The purpose of the Registry shall
be to assist the efforts of law-enforcement agencies statewide to protect their
communities from repeat child pornographers and to protect children from
becoming victims of criminal offenders by aiding in identifying victims and
perpetrators. Criminal justice agencies, including law-enforcement agencies, may
request of the State Police a search and comparison of child pornography images
contained within the Registry with those images obtained by criminal justice
agencies during the course of official investigations.

B. The Registry shall include hash values or other applicable identification
method of all known or suspected &#8220;child pornography,&#8221; as that term
is defined in subsection A of &#xA7; 18.2-374.1, obtained during the course of a
criminal investigation, or presented as evidence and used in any conviction for
any offense enumerated in &#xA7;&#xA7; 18.2-374.1 and 18.2-374.1:1.

C. Registry information provided under this section shall be used for the
purposes of the administration of criminal justice, for victim identification,
or for the protection of the public in general and children in particular. Use
of the information or the images contained therein for purposes not authorized
by this section is prohibited and a willful violation of this section with the
intent to harass or intimidate another is a Class 6 felony.

D. The Virginia Criminal Information Network and any form or document used by
the Department of State Police to disseminate information from the Registry
shall provide notice that any unauthorized possession, use, or dissemination of
the information or images is a crime punishable as a Class 6 felony.

HISTORY: 2003, cc. 935, 938; 2019, cc. 3, 42; 2023, cc. 28, 29.