Maryland License Plate Reader (ALPR) Laws (2026)

Maryland has a specific ALPR statute, Public Safety § 3-509, and it is written for police. In one sentence, a law enforcement agency may not use captured plate data without a legitimate law enforcement purpose, historical data belongs to the agency and may not be sold or uploaded to other agencies (with an exception for the Maryland Coordination and Analysis Center), and violations by agency or vendor employees can carry imprisonment of up to one year, a fine of up to $10,000, or both.

Information reviewed September 30, 2026.

For related pages, see the Maryland entry in the state comparison, the ALPR laws hub, Are Flock cameras legal?, What are Flock cameras?, and our Maryland surveillance camera laws guide.

When may Maryland police use plate reader data?

Under § 3-509(b)(1), "[a] law enforcement agency may not use captured plate data unless the agency has a legitimate law enforcement purpose." The statute defines that term as the investigation, detection, or analysis of a crime or a violation of the Maryland vehicle laws, or the operation of terrorist or missing or endangered person searches or alerts.

The sections reviewed for this page regulate law enforcement agencies and the vendors that contract with them. This page did not identify a Maryland ALPR provision that addresses homeowners associations or businesses running their own readers, and the research did not search beyond the sections named here.

Who owns the data, and who can receive it?

Historical ALPR data means data stored in an agency or Maryland Coordination and Analysis Center (MCAC) database or through cloud computing. Under § 3-509(b)(2), that data is the property of the law enforcement agency. It may not be sold by the agency or a contracted vendor, including through the sale of subscriptions or licenses to access it. A contracted vendor may not access it unless the agency expressly requests and authorizes access.

The data "may not be uploaded for any reason by the law enforcement agency or a vendor contracted by the law enforcement agency that stores the data to any other law enforcement agency or entity, regardless of whether the agency or entity is located inside or outside the State." The statute allows upload to a database owned or operated by the MCAC. Separately, Public Safety § 3-529, as amended by 2026 Md. Laws ch. 874 (HB 711) effective July 1, 2026, requires an entity operating a law enforcement database, including one a private vendor maintains for an agency, to deny access to anyone seeking it to enforce immigration law unless that person presents a valid warrant from a federal or Maryland court. Before that amendment the rule was limited to federal immigration law; the online code may still show the earlier wording.

Those data-handling rules and the cloud-computing definition were enacted by 2024 Md. Laws ch. 875 (HB 1081), approved May 16, 2024, effective October 1, 2024.

What are the penalties?

An employee of a law enforcement agency or of its contracted vendor who violates subsection (b) is "subject to imprisonment not exceeding 1 year or a fine not exceeding $10,000 or both," under § 3-509(b)(3). The penalty provision targets employees. This page did not identify a private right of action in the section.

What procedures and audits are required?

The State Police and any agency using an ALPR system must adopt procedures under § 3-509(c). The procedures must cover who may query the system, protection of personally identifiable information and criminal justice information, screening and training of MCAC staff, and breach certification with vendor reporting of breaches, employee-access counts, and unauthorized releases. They must include "an audit process to ensure that information obtained through the use of an automatic license plate reader system is used only for legitimate law enforcement purposes," including audits of requests by agencies, officers, and vendors.

How long does Maryland allow plate data to be kept?

Section 3-509 sets no numeric retention period, so retention is a matter of agency practice. In the State Police report dated March 1, 2026, Baltimore County's filing states that "all reads are stored for one year and then replaced by the current year data." Anne Arundel County's program page states that ALPR data "will be retained for no longer than 30 days," but the same page says reads from its Leonardo system are sent to the MCAC after 24 hours "for a retention period determined by MCAC" and that Motorola Solutions "retains data according to its retention policy" for its Vigilant system. Those are individual agencies' reported practices, not a statewide rule.

What has the State Police reported?

By March 1 each year, the State Police with the MCAC, and agencies that keep an ALPR database, must report to the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee, the House Judiciary Committee, and the Legislative Policy Committee. The report covers unit counts, readings retained, requests (including out-of-state and federal requests and releases), breaches, and audits.

As reported by the Maryland State Police in its report covering 2025, dated March 1, 2026, 1,077 units submitted data to the MCAC and 1,188,559,099 readings were retained. There were 4,737 requests, of which 274 were out-of-state and 674 were federal, with 191 out-of-state releases and 570 federal releases. The report covering 2023 had listed 830,097,779 readings retained and 5,310 requests. The next annual report is due March 1, 2027.

Can you request ALPR records in Maryland?

The statute closes the ordinary route. Under § 3-509(d) and General Provisions § 4-326, information gathered by an ALPR system is not subject to disclosure under the Maryland Public Information Act. A custodian of captured plate data must deny inspection of it, except that the agency may use or share it as § 3-509 authorizes. The denial does not apply to the Maryland Transportation Authority's electronic toll collection systems.

That bar covers captured plate data. The annual reports described above are available, as the one cited on this page shows, and a policy or contract is a different kind of record from the plate data itself. The research did not test whether those records are obtainable by request.

Have Maryland courts addressed ALPR?

No Maryland appellate opinion was found that interprets § 3-509 or decides a Fourth Amendment challenge to ALPR data. One incidental case, Rodriguez v. State, No. 1530, Sept. Term 2021 (Md. App. Ct. June 1, 2023), involved an encounter in a shopping-center parking lot that began with an ALPR stolen-plate alert in an Anne Arundel County patrol car, but the opinion turns on search incident to arrest and Miranda custody, not on ALPR law. Separately, Transportation § 25-113 excludes stops based on license plate reader technology from its definition of a traffic stop for traffic-stop data purposes, which is not an ALPR use rule.

Is any bill pending, and what local record exists?

A scan of the 2025 and 2026 Regular Session bill lists found no bill listing § 3-509 or General Provisions § 4-326 among its affected statutes or using plate-reader language in its title, according to the 2026 bill master list scan. Bills on speed cameras and video-toll image capture appeared but did not amend § 3-509. A scan is not a guarantee that no bill exists.

The one deployment record identified is the Anne Arundel County Police Department's Automated License Plate Reader Program, shown as active as of September 28, 2026. The list is not complete.

Frequently asked questions

Last updated: September 30, 2026. Statutes cited reflect the text reviewed on September 29, 2026; report figures are those the State Police reported for 2025 data.

One general law may be relevant. The Maryland Online Data Privacy Act applies to businesses that controlled or processed the personal data of at least 35,000 consumers in the preceding year, or at least 10,000 while deriving more than 20% of gross revenue from selling personal data, under Commercial Law § 14-4702. Under § 14-4703(a)(1) it does not apply to a body or instrumentality "of the State or a political subdivision of the State." The act does not mention license plates, and this page does not decide whether it reaches a private plate reader operator.

Toll records have their own Public Information Act rule. Under General Provisions § 4-319, a custodian must deny inspection of "a photograph, a videotape, or an electronically recorded image of a vehicle," "a vehicle movement record," and other personal information created or obtained by the Maryland Transportation Authority for an electronic toll collection system. Inspection is allowed by a person named in the record or that person's attorney, by Authority employees or agents in speed or toll-liability proceedings, by employees or agents of a third party that has an agreement with the Authority to use the toll system for nontoll applications in collecting revenues due to that third party, and by employees or agents of an entity in another state operating or having jurisdiction over a toll facility. The section does not list law enforcement agencies among them, and this page did not research whether other law, such as a warrant or subpoena, gives police access to toll records.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does Maryland have an ALPR law?

Yes. Public Safety section 3-509 regulates law enforcement use of captured plate data, historical data ownership and sharing, audits, and annual reporting.

How long can Maryland police keep plate reader data?

Section 3-509 sets no statutory retention period. One agency, Baltimore County, reported in its filing on 2025 data that all reads are stored for one year and then replaced.

Can plate data be shared with other states or federal agencies?

Under section 3-509(b)(2), historical data may not be uploaded to any other law enforcement agency or entity, inside or outside Maryland, except to the Maryland Coordination and Analysis Center database. The State Police report for 2025 data listed 274 out-of-state and 674 federal requests, with 191 out-of-state and 570 federal releases. Separately, Public Safety section 3-529, as amended effective July 1, 2026, requires law enforcement databases to deny access to anyone seeking to enforce immigration law unless the person presents a valid warrant from a federal or Maryland court.

Are Maryland ALPR records public?

Information gathered by an ALPR system is not subject to disclosure under the Public Information Act, and custodians must deny inspection of captured plate data.

What is the penalty for misuse?

An agency or vendor employee who violates subsection (b) is subject to up to 1 year in prison, a fine up to $10,000, or both.