Hawaii Has No General Stop-and-Identify Law, Only Subject-Specific Duties

The correct way to read Hawaii on this question is to look at what the Penal Code does not contain. Chapter 710, Offenses Against Public Administration, runs from §710-1000 through the impersonation and false-reporting offenses and contains no refusal-to-identify offense at all. Its obstruction provision, §710-1010, reaches only conduct carried out "by using or threatening to use violence, force, or physical interference or obstacle," so silence about your name cannot be charged under it. There is no Hawaii counterpart to the general identification statutes some mainland states put in their criminal codes.

What Hawaii has instead is a traffic-code duty. HRS §291C-172(a) reaches "any person detained for a violation of this chapter," meaning chapter 291C, the Statewide Traffic Code, and it requires that person to provide "the person's name and address, or any proof thereof, or both," on the lawful order of a police officer acting in the course and scope of duties under that chapter. Two limits are built in. The duty attaches to a detention for a traffic-code violation, not to a consensual encounter or to a detention under some other body of law, and the officer's order must itself be lawful and within the officer's chapter 291C duties.

Subsection (b) is a separate and gentler rule for pedestrians detained under Part VII of chapter 291C, Pedestrians' Rights and Duties, which covers crosswalk, sidewalk and roadway-crossing offenses. Such a pedestrian must give a name and address. Proof is required only in a second step, and only "if the officer has reasonable grounds to believe that the person is being deceptive or misleading in providing the person's name and address." A pedestrian stopped for a jaywalking-type offense is therefore not required to produce a document at the outset, which is the practical difference between (a) and (b).

Drivers carry a third, older duty. HRS §286-116(a) requires every licensee to have a valid driver's licence in immediate possession at all times together with an insurance identification card for the vehicle, and to display them on demand of a police officer, and it goes further than most states by directing that "Every police officer or law enforcement officer when stopping a vehicle or inspecting a vehicle for any reason shall demand that the driver or owner display the driver's or owner's driver's license and insurance identification card." The same section allows an electronic insurance card on a mobile device and, when one is presented, prohibits the officer from viewing any other content on that device, while the person presenting it assumes all liability for damage to it. There is also a cure: no person charged under §286-116 may be convicted if they produce in court, or prove from official records, that they held a valid licence and conforming insurance at the time of arrest.

The newest duty is the sharpest. Act 243, Session Laws of Hawaii 2025, created HRS §132D-20.5, requiring any person detained for violating chapter 132D, the fireworks control law, to provide a name and current mailing address, or proof, on the lawful order of any law enforcement officer enforcing that chapter, with proof compelled where the officer has reasonable grounds to believe the person is being deceptive or misleading. Unlike the traffic version, subsection (c) makes refusal a petty misdemeanor rather than a fineable violation.

The consequences differ sharply by which duty applies. A refusal under §291C-172 is a violation of chapter 291C for which no separate penalty is stated, so it falls to the general schedule in §291C-161(b): a fine of not more than $250 for a first violation, not more than $300 for a second committed within one year of the first, and not more than $500 for a third or subsequent violation within that year. The court may also assess up to $50 for the cost of issuing a penal summons where a person fails to appear as the citation directs.

A driver who cannot produce a licence or insurance card under §286-116 is exposed to §286-136(b), which fines any violation of another section in Part VI at no more than $1,000, though the in-court production defence in §286-116 disposes of most such charges where the documents actually existed. 5 is a petty misdemeanor, which in Hawaii carries a term of imprisonment as well as a fine, and it is enforced alongside §132D-20, the chapter's probable-cause-for-arrest provision. Nothing in any of the three sections authorises an arrest simply for staying silent outside those defined circumstances, and there is no Penal Code offense in chapter 710 to fall back on.