ALPR Legislation Tracker
Federal and state laws, pending bills, retention limits, data-sharing restrictions, warrant proposals, oversight requirements, and other developments affecting automated license plate reader use.
Tracker Snapshot
What agencies should know now
ALPR regulation remains a state-by-state patchwork. Current legislative activity focuses less on the camera itself and more on retention, sharing, query authority, sensitive uses, oversight, and accountability.
Retention
Enacted limits range from minutes for non-hit data to weeks or months, with several pending bills proposing new statewide caps.
Data Sharing
Cross-jurisdiction and federal access are major legislative flashpoints, especially where state law restricts immigration or healthcare-related use.
Warrants
Warrant proposals are emerging for historical database queries, even though courts have not broadly extended Carpenter to ALPR data.
Audits & Oversight
Registration, access logs, independent audits, reporting, and penalties increasingly appear in state legislation.
Federal ALPR proposals
No comprehensive federal ALPR statute was identified in the underlying August 2026 research. The proposals below would either restrict or expand federal access and use.
H.R. 9800 — Protection Against Mass Surveillance Act
Would bar federal agencies from purchasing, deploying, operating, accessing, or contracting for Flock Safety-type ALPR cameras and other covered mass-surveillance technologies, and would restrict certain federal funding for state/local acquisition or operation.
Introduced July 21, 2026PRIVACY Act
Would require federal law-enforcement agencies to obtain a warrant before accessing or querying ALPR and other surveillance data collected by state/local systems.
Introduced July 2026Perry/García ALPR Amendment
Amendment 221 to the BUILD America 250 Act would have limited ALPR use by Title 23 highway-funding recipients to tolling. It failed 20–44 in committee on May 21, 2026.
Not enactedCORCA — H.R. 2853 / S. 1404
Organized-retail-crime legislation that would create a federal coordination center capable of drawing on ALPR, facial-recognition, and other data. The House bill passed May 12, 2026; the Senate bill remained pending.
Expansion of federal useCRS IF13068
Congressional Research Service background on automated license plate readers and legal issues.
2025CRS R48160
Congressional Research Service report addressing law-enforcement use of ALPR technology and related Fourth Amendment issues.
2024State law explorer
Select a state for a concise operational summary based on the August 2026 tracker research.
Washington — SB 6002 (2026)
New statewide framework restricting ALPR use, retention, placement, sharing, and operational reliance.
California — Civil Code § 1798.90.5 et seq.
California regulates ALPR operators and end users through privacy, security, use-policy, and data-sharing requirements.
Virginia — Va. Code § 2.2-5517
Use is limited to defined purposes such as active criminal investigations, human trafficking, and stolen vehicles/plates.
Illinois — 625 ILCS 5/2-130
Current law focuses on sharing and confidentiality restrictions. The 90-day archive / 5-year destruction schedule is not current Illinois law; it appears in pending SB 3257.
Maine — 29-A M.R.S. § 2117-A
General-use prohibition subject to narrow law-enforcement and transportation exceptions.
New Hampshire — RSA § 261:75-b
Use is restricted to law-enforcement officers and is subject to state attorney-general audit.
Arkansas — Act 668 / SB 446 (2025)
Expanded permitted use to certain private landowners, leaseholders, and commercial businesses alongside government users.
Idaho — S. 1180 (2025)
Authorizes ALPR use for specified public-safety and traffic-related purposes while barring routine traffic enforcement and political/non-law-enforcement use.
Montana — SB 282 (2025)
Not ALPR-specific. Restricts state/local government purchase of sensitive personal data, including geolocation data, from data brokers without a warrant, consent, or investigative subpoena.
Active and pending state bills
Use the filters to review legislation identified in the August 2026 tracker research. Status should be re-verified before reliance.
| State | Bill | Key proposal | Status as of Aug. 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Colorado | SB26-070 | Would require a warrant for ALPR database searches beyond 72 hours after a reported crime absent exigent circumstances; would restrict out-of-state sharing, ban sale of historical data, mandate audits, and cap retention. | Passed Senate committees; pending full Senate vote |
| Colorado | SB26-071 | Companion surveillance-technology oversight bill covering ALPR and other tools. | In committee |
| California | SB 274 | Would cap public-agency ALPR retention at 60 days statewide, with a hot-list match exception, and require annual random DOJ audits. | Passed Senate; pending in Assembly |
| Illinois | HB 5151 | Would create a standalone ALPR statute addressing authorized uses, retention, prohibited uses, reporting, admissibility, penalties, and private enforcement. | House Rules Committee |
| Illinois | SB 3257 | Would add a 90-day archive / 5-year destruction scheme and restrict access to archived detections. | Senate Assignments Committee |
| Minnesota | HF 3856 / companion | Would prohibit state/local government entities from using ALPR while separately regulating private use. | Introduced |
| New York | A10808 | Would prohibit government use of ALPR systems or captured plate data except for specified limited purposes. | In committee |
| South Carolina | S. 447 / H. 4013 | Would define ALPR terms, limit which entities may operate systems, and impose use and retention/destruction requirements. | Pending 2025–26 session |
| New Jersey | A3297 / S4174 | Would criminalize unauthorized law-enforcement use/access and require annual reporting plus AG or county-prosecutor audits. | Pending |
| Pennsylvania | SB 933 | Would create a process permitting ALPR deployment on state-owned highway infrastructure. | Senate Transportation Committee |
Bill numbers and status reflect research current through early August 2026 and should be verified on the relevant legislature’s official website before use.
What agencies should be watching
Across enacted laws and pending bills, the same governance issues appear repeatedly.
1. Shorter retention periods
Legislation increasingly limits how long non-hit or non-evidentiary detections can remain searchable.
2. Cross-jurisdiction sharing restrictions
States are limiting access by federal or out-of-state agencies, particularly for immigration, reproductive-health, or other protected-purpose investigations.
3. Historical-search warrant proposals
Some proposals would require judicial process before law enforcement may query historical ALPR data beyond an initial time window.
4. Audit trails and independent review
Access logs, state registration, random audits, reporting, and independent oversight are becoming recurring statutory features.
5. Sensitive-location and purpose restrictions
Schools, healthcare facilities, houses of worship, courts, First Amendment activity, and other sensitive contexts are receiving express legislative attention.
6. Independent confirmation before enforcement action
At least one enacted framework expressly bars relying on an ALPR match alone as the basis for a vehicle stop without independent confirmation.
Regulation follows the technology, not the brand
Current ALPR statutes and bills are generally drafted by function rather than vendor name.
Flock Safety
Named frequently in 2026 legislation, audits, litigation, and public controversy because of its market presence and network scale.
Leonardo / ELSAG
No bill, audit, or lawsuit identified in the August 2026 tracker research specifically names Leonardo, ELSAG, or Plate Hunter, but vendor-neutral statutes would apply to those deployments.
Other ALPR Providers
The same retention, sharing, warrant, placement, oversight, and prohibited-purpose rules may apply to Motorola/Vigilant, Rekor, Genetec, PlateSmart, Perceptics, Jenoptik, Axon, and other systems.
Legislation is evolving alongside litigation
These cases are included for legal context rather than as legislation.
United States v. Jones
Warrantless GPS tracking of a vehicle was held to be a search.
Carpenter v. United States
The Supreme Court required a warrant for historical cell-site location information while describing the holding as narrow.
Commonwealth v. McCarthy
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court held that a sufficiently dense ALPR network could implicate a reasonable expectation of privacy under the Massachusetts Constitution.
United States v. Martin
A federal district court declined to extend Carpenter’s mosaic theory to a roughly 188-camera Flock network.
Schmidt v. City of Norfolk
District court granted summary judgment for the city in January 2026; the plaintiffs appealed to the Fourth Circuit.
Javorsky v. Flock Group Inc.
Pending Northern District of California litigation alleging improper federal and out-of-state access to San Francisco ALPR data under California law.