Flock Safety’s published standard is seven calendar days of license-plate-reader data retention, but that is not necessarily how long a local police department keeps its data. Flock says existing customers retain their current periods unless they adopt the company’s newer recommendation, and public agency examples report 30-day Flock deployments. For any system, privacy depends not just on retention, but also on who controls the data, who can search or share it, and how access is audited.
What does Flock Safety’s seven-day retention policy mean?
Flock’s Evidence Policy, last updated August 12, 2026, states: “Flock Safety’s default data retention period for data collected by license plate readers is seven (7) days, after which data is hard deleted from the cloud.” The policy describes seven calendar days as the standard unless an individual customer agreement specifies otherwise. Flock also says expired license-plate-reader data is permanently deleted and irretrievable. These are statements by the vendor, not independent audit findings.
Flock’s trust center says its system collects license-plate images, vehicle characteristics, date and time stamps, and camera-location identifiers. It describes access as role-based, searches as recorded, and retention as set in advance with automatic deletion. Its FAQ says most communities retain data for seven days unless local law requires a different period.
The company’s recommendation is not every customer’s setting
In an August 13, 2026 announcement, Flock said it had changed its recommended and default period from 30 days to seven days. The company said existing customers would keep their current retention periods unless they chose to adopt the recommendation. So the change describes Flock’s published position for new or adopting customers; it does not establish that every camera already in use now deletes data after seven days.
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Flock also announced Evidence Mode, which can preserve specific data for active investigations. A shorter ordinary retention period therefore does not, by itself, establish how long a particular record can remain available when it is preserved as evidence.
State rules and contracts may change the result
Flock’s state-specific provisions describe a 21-day ALPR retention cap in certain jurisdictions, or a shorter period requested by the customer, along with jurisdiction-specific terms on ownership, security, and disclosure. The relevant state provision and individual contract matter; a rule described for certain jurisdictions should not be treated as a nationwide limit.
How do Flock, Leonardo, and Vigilant compare in a real deployment?
Anne Arundel County, Maryland, provides a side-by-side account of its own deployments. Its figures describe that county’s systems and arrangements—not universal vendor policies.
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| System in Anne Arundel County | Retention and handling reported by the county | Who controls the data or historical searches |
|---|---|---|
| Flock Safety | Reads are retained locally for 30 days, then automatically purged. | County police say they own and maintain the data. |
| Leonardo | Data is maintained locally for 24 hours; historical data then goes to the Maryland Coordination and Analysis Center (MCAC). | County police say they own and maintain local data. Searches for records older than 24 hours are redirected to MCAC. |
| Vigilant | The county does not state a fixed number of days for this deployment. | The county says Motorola Solutions manages and controls the data under Motorola’s retention policy, which Motorola may adjust. |
These examples show why a vendor name alone cannot answer how long data will remain available. One county reports different retention and control arrangements across its three systems, including a state-system transfer for Leonardo and vendor control for Vigilant.
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Palo Alto, California, says its Flock data is retained for 30 days and that data sharing with other agencies requires memoranda of understanding (MOUs). Together with Anne Arundel County’s account, this illustrates that a local 30-day period can coexist with Flock’s newer seven-day standard.
Why retention time does not tell the whole privacy story
Retention answers how long data is kept under a stated policy. It does not tell you who can query it while it exists, whether another agency can search it, what purpose a search must serve, or whether access is reviewed. Those controls can matter as much as the deletion date.
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Access and sharing
Flock’s trust center says access is role-based and searches are recorded. Palo Alto’s account illustrates why agencies and residents may also need to examine network features and inter-agency rules. The city says Flock’s Nationwide Lookup feature had allowed broad searches of a nationwide network that included Palo Alto cameras. Palo Alto says the feature was disabled for its police department by late October 2024 and for all California law-enforcement agencies by March 2025. The city says its review found no Palo Alto data received by out-of-state or federal agencies through those searches.
Separately, the Associated Press reported in November 2025 that federal agencies had past access to data from at least three private ALPR vendors: Rekor, Vigilant Solutions, and Flock Safety. The report said Flock access at one point covered at least 1,600 readers across 22 states, and that a Flock spokesperson said its Customs and Border Protection and Homeland Security Investigations pilot programs were paused at the time of the report. This is dated reporting about past access and the status reported then; it does not establish current access or the configuration of any particular agency system.
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Palo Alto says it began publishing partially redacted Flock search logs monthly on April 21, 2026. That is a local transparency practice, not evidence that every agency publishes comparable records.
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Flock’s August 13, 2026 announcement described expanded audit assistance, offense filtering for sharing, proactive lockouts, mandatory multi-factor authentication, and mandatory case codes by the end of 2026. These are announced controls and rollout commitments. An agency’s current implementation status should be confirmed with that agency rather than inferred from the company announcement.
In the same announcement, Flock reported that “over 90%” of searches without a full plate are done within a week. This is a company-reported analysis, not an independently published statistic.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What do public agency figures say about ALPR oversight?
The Virginia State Crime Commission’s 2026 report, based on its 2025 survey, shows that agencies may use more than one vendor and that policy coverage is not universal among responding ALPR users.
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- Among 159 responding Virginia agencies that used ALPR, 112 reported having a policy.
- The report lists agency contracts or subscriptions with Axon (35 agencies), Flock Safety (137), Leonardo (12), Motorola (12), Thomson Reuters/CLEAR LPR (6), and other vendors (12).
Vendor counts can exceed 159 because agencies could report more than one vendor. These are survey responses in Virginia, not national market-share or usage figures. The survey’s vendor list does not establish a single retention period or privacy policy for any brand.
How to find your local police department’s actual retention period
For the question “How long does my local police department keep Flock camera data?”, seek the local rule and contract rather than relying on a vendor’s general policy. Ask the agency or review its ALPR policy, procurement documents, contract, and any public records describing its system configuration.
- Identify the system and data owner. Ask which vendor and system are in use, whether the agency or vendor owns and maintains the data, and whether another agency or state system receives historical reads.
- Ask for the configured retention period. Request the ordinary deletion period, whether it is calendar days or another measure, and what happens when data is preserved for an investigation or evidence.
- Check the sharing rules. Ask which agencies can search the system, whether access requires an MOU or other approval, and what purposes or offenses permit a search or disclosure.
- Ask how searches are audited. Find out whether users must record a reason or case number, who reviews logs, what misuse response exists, and whether audit information is public.
- Check governing documents and applicable law. Compare the agency’s public policy with its contract and relevant state requirements; do not assume the vendor’s standard overrides either.
What to compare when evaluating ALPR privacy
A useful comparison is deployment-specific. For each vendor or system, establish the same facts from the agency’s contract, written policy, and applicable law:
- Retention and deletion: How long are ordinary reads kept, when does automatic deletion occur, and can records be preserved longer?
- Ownership and control: Does the agency control the records, or can a vendor or another entity set or change retention terms?
- Hosting and transfers: Is data stored locally or in the cloud, and does it move to a regional or state system after a period?
- Query access: Which employees or outside agencies can search, and is access role-based or separately approved?
- Sharing and purpose limits: Are searches limited by MOUs, offense rules, case requirements, or other restrictions?
- Auditing: Are searches recorded, reviewed, and tied to a case or reason? What happens after misuse?
- Transparency: Does the agency publish policies, sharing arrangements, retention terms, or redacted search logs?
Without those deployment-level details, a brand-to-brand privacy ranking would overstate what the available public examples establish. The Virginia survey lists multiple vendors, while the detailed retention comparisons here are specific to Palo Alto and Anne Arundel County.
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