Congress creates national trafficking database to expose hidden crime patterns.
S. 61 — National Human Trafficking Database Act · Filed by Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) · 1 cosponsor · Introduced Jan 9, 2025 · Referred to committee
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What it does
This bill creates a national human trafficking database at the Department of Justice's Office for Victims of Crime. It provides federal grants to state law enforcement and designated state agencies to collect and report human trafficking data—including arrests, prosecutions, convictions, and information about victim service organizations—which the DOJ will compile and publish online. States must report data annually, and the DOJ must update the public database and report to Congress each year.
Why we flagged it
The bill's core mechanism is establishing a centralized, publicly accessible database to improve transparency and coordination on human trafficking. It is a data-collection and accountability measure, not a regulatory change or enforcement action.
What the text implies
- Database publication may enable anti-trafficking organizations and researchers to identify underserved counties and redirect resources, but could also expose trafficking patterns that criminals exploit.
- Requirement for states to report data may create compliance burden on smaller or under-resourced state agencies, potentially widening disparities in data quality across states.
- Aggregation of data from multiple federal agencies (DHS, BIA, ACF) creates a single point of federal visibility into trafficking patterns, raising questions about data retention and secondary use not addressed in the bill.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
The bill creates a public accountability mechanism by centralizing and publishing human trafficking data, enabling citizens, advocates, and policymakers to identify trafficking hotspots and gaps in victim services. It includes explicit protections for survivor confidentiality and privacy, preventing misuse of data to identify or harm trafficking survivors.
Who stands to gain
- state law enforcement agencies (grant recipients)
- nonprofit and private organizations contracted to collect data
Named in the bill
Office for Victims of Crime, Department of Justice, State law enforcement agencies, Administration for Children and Families, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Department of Homeland Security, National Human Trafficking Hotline, anti-human trafficking organizations
Where it stands
1 cosponsor: 1 Democrats.
- Jan 9, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in Senate”
- Jan 9, 2025 — Referred to Senate Committee on the Judiciary · Congress.gov: “Read twice and referred to the Committee on the Judiciary”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
1 lobbying clients named this bill on 1 disclosure filings across 1 quarter, Jun 2026 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $720,000 in lobbying spend. A filing names 164 bills on average, so that figure is what each filing reported, not a share belonging to this bill.
More lobbying clients named this bill than 0% of bills with at least one filing.
Marsha Blackburn, the sponsor, reported $133,620 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.
- American Trucking Associations — $720,000 on 1 filing
Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 20, 2026. A filing shows who paid to lobby on a bill it names, not what changed.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (10,046 characters) on Nov 2, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,927 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
Money — Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act filings whose specific-issue field names this bill for quarters ending Jun 2026 to Jun 2026. A filing's amount is reported whole beside the median number of bills a filing names; it is never divided across them. PAC receipts are FEC-reported contributions to the sponsor's candidate committee in the 2026 cycle.
As of — lobbying records through Jul 20, 2026 · page rendered 2026-11-02.
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