1. Any person who willfully requests, obtains, or seeks to obtain child abuse information under false pretenses, or who willfully communicates or seeks to communicate child abuse information to any agency or person except in accordance with sections 235A.15 and 235A.17, or any person connected with any research authorized pursuant to section 235A.15 who willfully falsifies child abuse information or any records relating to child abuse information, or any employee of the department who knowingly destroys assessment data except in accordance with rule as established by the department for retention of child abuse information under section 235A.18 is guilty of a serious misdemeanor. Any person who knowingly, but without criminal purposes, communicates or seeks to communicate child abuse information except in accordance with sections 235A.15 and 235A.17 shall be guilty of a simple misdemeanor.

Attorney's Note

Under the Iowa Code, punishments for crimes depend on the classification. In the case of this section:
ClassPrisonFine
Serious misdemeanorup to 1 yearbetween $430 and $2,560
Simple misdemeanorup to 30 daysbetween $105 and $855
For details, see Iowa Code§ 903.1

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Terms Used In Iowa Code 235A.21

  • Assessment data: means any of the following information pertaining to the department's evaluation of a family:
  • Child: includes but shall not be limited to a stepchild, foster child, or legally adopted child and means a child actually or apparently under eighteen years of age, and a dependent person eighteen years of age or over who is unable to maintain the person's self and is likely to become a public charge. See Iowa Code 252A.2
  • Child abuse information: means any or all of the following data maintained by the department in a manual or automated data storage system and individually identified:
  • Department: means the department of health and human services. See Iowa Code 235A.13
  • Department: means the department of health and human services. See Iowa Code 249L.2
  • person: means individual, corporation, limited liability company, government or governmental subdivision or agency, business trust, estate, trust, partnership or association, or any other legal entity. See Iowa Code 4.1
  • Rule: includes "regulation". See Iowa Code 4.1
 2. Any reasonable grounds for belief that a person has violated any provision of this chapter shall be grounds for the immediate withdrawal of any authorized access such person might otherwise have to child abuse information.