Within the next 90 days, the New York City Police Department has agreed to erase from its databases names of people who were stopped and frisked and later cleared of any criminal activity, according to a settlement reached Wednesday in the New York Supreme Court.
In 2010, the New York Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit against the police department for holding the names and addresses of all individuals who have been stopped, arrested or issued a summons in cases that were dismissed or resolved as noncriminal.

"Though much still needs to be done, this settlement is an important step towards curbing the impact of abusive stop-and-frisk practices," said Christopher Dunn, associate legal director of the NYCLU and lead counsel in the case.  

The New York Daily News reports:
The city initially fought the suit tooth and nail, maintaining it had a right to the information, but relented after a state appeals court ruling in the NYCLU's favor earlier this year. The NYPD had started the database in 2006.

The deal announced Wednesday goes farther than the NYCLU had sought — the city agreed to expunge the names and addresses of everyone in the database, including those convicted of crimes.
Paul Browne, a spokesman for the NYPD, said "there was no practical reason to continue this litigation."

The NYPD will continue to track the ages, genders and races of the people who were stopped, as well as the name of the officers involved and the reasons for the stops.

Read full story here.
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