Overview:
Ten years after Palau passed its Sex Offender Registration Act, the country still has no public online registry. Attorney General confirmed that while internal records are maintained and accessible upon request, the planned public database remains offline due to funding challenges.
Attorney General: Palau Maintains Internal Sex Offender Records, But No Public Database
By: Summer Kennard
Koror, Palau (October 14, 2025) After months of questions regarding the implementation of Palau’s Sex Offender Registration Law, Attorney General Ernestine K. Rengiil confirmed that the country still lacks a public online registry, though internal records are maintained and accessible by request.
“There is no public online registry at this time, but if anyone wants to look at the records we have, they are free to do so,” Rengiil stated in her response.
Rengiil also provided documentation detailing a collaborative project between the Office of the Attorney General and Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) aimed at building the digital infrastructure for a sex offender registry. The project began under a memorandum of understanding signed on May 8, 2023, and was led by CMU student consultant Anupama Anilkumar, who worked with the Attorney General’s Office through August 2023.
The system, built using Airtable, Google Sheets, and Google Drive, was designed to automate registration notices and track compliance. For instance, offenders are required to renew their registration annually on their birthdays, with the system programmed to issue alerts for missed deadlines.
However, according to Rengiil, the registry project “has not been fully implemented due mainly to a lack of funds to support the project.”
Palau’s Sex Offender Registration Act (17 PNC Chapter 17) was enacted in 2014 and amended in 2016 to enhance monitoring and public awareness of convicted offenders. More than ten years later, no public-facing platform exists for Palauans to search offender information, a situation that has drawn increasing concern among community advocates.