Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles

RMV Extends Grace Period For Expired Inspection Stickers

The RMV said vehicles with expired inspection stickers from March and April 2021 will have until May 31 to be inspected.

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The Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles on Tuesday extended a grace period for certain extended inspection stickers after a malware attack on a vendor impacted inspection stations.

In a statement, the RMV said vehicles with expired inspection stickers from March and April 2021 would have until May 31 to be inspected.

People who purchased a new vehicle and registered it on or after March 23 will have until April 30 to get an inspection.

Any driver whose vehicle failed inspection and was in the middle of 60-day retest window will also be afforded one extra day for each day the Applus inspection system has been down.

The Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles has given a new date of Saturday, April 17, for when they expect service to be restored.

Applus, which also runs inspections in several states beyond Massachusetts, was hit by a cyberattack on March 30 that brought its system offline.

Gov. Charlie Baker said Monday that he "fully expects" the state's Wisconsin-based vendor to make up for some of the losses.

"It's our expectation that by the end of the week, this needs to be solved," Baker said at a press conference on Monday in Worcester.

Baker said that "to the best of our knowledge" no consumer information has "ended up anywhere in the public domain" as a result of the cyber attack, but he acknowledged that businesses that employ staff to perform vehicle inspections have been hurt by the pause.

"We fully expect the vendor to find a way to compensate many of the folks at the dealer and the service station level who have been horribly inconvenienced by this," Baker said.

"The RMV will hold the vendor accountable for this disruption and is working with Applus to restore services as soon as possible,” the Registry said in its release Friday.

The RMV has announced a grace period for drivers, including those with expired inspection stickers from March 2021. Those drivers will have until April 30, 2021 to update their inspections.

NBC and State House News Service
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