The rules: retention is a setting, not a standard
The same technology keeps your plate read for 3 minutes in New Hampshire, 24 hours in Peel Region, 7 days in Toronto, a year in the UK — and forever in most US states. Five orders of magnitude, decided by a dropdown menu.
How long they keep the plates of innocent drivers
| Jurisdiction | Non-hit read retention | Authority |
|---|---|---|
| New Hampshire | 3 minutes | RSA 261:75-b (repeal slated Jan 2027) |
| BC, Canada (police) | End of shift / immediate | OIPC BC ruling F12-04 (2012) |
| Peel Regional Police, ON | 24 hours (matches: 30 days) | Peel Regional Police official policy |
| Toronto Police, ON | 7 days (hits: 365 days) | TPS policy + PIA |
| Maine | 21 days | 29-A M.R.S. §2117-A |
| Virginia | 21 days | HB 2724 (2025) |
| Washington State | 21 days | Driver Privacy Act, SB 6002 (2026) |
| Flock default (US) | 30 days | Vendor default setting |
| Oregon | 30 days | 2026 statute |
| Minnesota | 60 days | Statute |
| California (CHP) | 60 days | SB 34 (2015) |
| Tennessee | 90 days | Statute |
| Arkansas | 150 days | Statute |
| Utah | 9 months | Statute |
| United Kingdom (national ANPR) | 12 months | NPCC standards — no statute |
| Vermont | 18 months | 23 V.S.A. §1607 |
| Georgia | 30 months | Statute |
| Colorado | 3 years | C.R.S. §24-72-113 |
| New Jersey | 3 years (was 5) | AG Directive 2022-12 |
| ~34 US states with no statute | Agency discretion — up to indefinite | LAPD audit found 320M stored images |
Three models of oversight
🇨🇦 Canada — commissioner-led
No ALPR statute anywhere. Privacy commissioners (OPC, IPC Ontario, OIPC BC, CAI Québec) set doctrine through investigations and guidance. The template: BC's 2012 ruling that keeping non-hit data is unlawful. Result: short retention, no vendor-run national search network, and no Flock — the company has zero Canadian police contracts.
🇺🇸 United States — patchwork + litigation
~16 states have statutes; ~34 leave it to agency discretion. Enforcement comes from lawsuits (the Norfolk Fourth Amendment case is at the Fourth Circuit) and state AGs — California sued El Cajon, Illinois caught Flock giving CBP access. Since Feb 2025, 50+ communities have cancelled Flock contracts.
🇬🇧 UK — everything, for a year
The National ANPR Service: ~14,000 cameras, 100M+ reads per day into one national database, 12-month retention — with no statutory basis, and its dedicated oversight office recently abolished. The former commissioner called it possibly "one of the largest data gatherers of its citizens in the world."
Ontario: the spread, funded provincially
| Where | What |
|---|---|
| Toronto | Entire marked fleet (~560–600 vehicles) scans — 1.25M+ plates/day capacity. 2026 budget adds $5.6M for "AI Operationalization." |
| Brampton (Peel) | Genetec fixed cameras at key intersections (50 per early reports; Genetec's release says 200). |
| York Region | $255K expansion; every camera has ALPR, feeding a real-time operations centre on Axon Fusus. |
| Waterloo Region | Combined CCTV + ALPR live June 23, 2026; Kitchener, Cambridge, North Dumfries next. Funded by Ontario's Guns, Gangs and Violence Reduction Strategy. |
| Sudbury | 31 equipped vehicles + fixed ALPR at 16 locations (provincially funded). |
| Province-wide | Ontario assessing highway ALPR under the proposed Protecting Ontario's Streets and Communities Act, 2026. OPP: all frontline vehicles equipped since 2023. |