The Secretary of Health and Human Services, in consultation with the Attorney General, shall create a national registry of substantiated cases of child abuse or neglect.
The information to be provided to the Secretary of Health and Human Services under this section shall relate to substantiated reports of child abuse or neglect.
If a State, Indian tribe, or political subdivision of a State has an electronic register of cases of child abuse or neglect equivalent to the registry established under this section that it maintains pursuant to a requirement or authorization under any other provision of law, the information provided to the Secretary of Health and Human Services under this section shall be coextensive with that in such register.
Information contained in the national registry shall only be accessible to any Federal, State, Indian tribe, or local government entity, or any agent of such entities, that has a need for such information in order to carry out its responsibilities under law to protect children from child abuse and neglect.
The Secretary of Health and Human Services shall establish standards for the dissemination of information in the national registry of substantiated cases of child abuse or neglect. Such standards shall comply with clauses (viii) and (ix) of section 5106a(b)(2)(A) 1 of title 42.
Not later than 1 year after July 27, 2006, the Secretary of Homeland Security shall submit to the Committees on the Judiciary in the House of Representatives and the United States Senate and the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions and the House Committee on Education and the Workforce a report containing the recommendations and findings of the study on data collection standards for a national child abuse registry authorized under this subsection.