New York License Plate Reader Laws (2026)

New York has no enacted license plate reader statute. Retention, sharing and audit rules come from each agency's own policy, several bills are pending, and one bill covering only users other than law enforcement has passed both houses but was not shown as delivered to the Governor when we checked.

Information reviewed September 30, 2026.

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

Does New York have a license plate reader law?

No enacted statute we found regulates plate readers. The negative is limited to what we opened on September 30, 2026. We checked the tables of contents of the Vehicle and Traffic Law, Executive Law, Criminal Procedure Law and Public Officers Law on the state Senate's website and found no article on plate readers or plate data. We read Executive Law section 840 (the Municipal Police Training Council provision) in full and it does not contain the phrase "license plate." We read Vehicle and Traffic Law section 1704-a (central business district tolling) and found no plate image retention or privacy language in it, and we looked at sections 201 and 202 on DMV records, which do not cover police plate reader data. We did not open each section of Executive Law articles 11 and 35 or the text of Criminal Procedure Law articles.

Several areas were not enumerated, so we do not state a negative for them: the General Business Law, Public Authorities Law (Thruway and MTA toll data), Civil Rights Law, State Technology Law, General Municipal Law, the State Archives retention schedule, executive orders and Attorney General opinions. For toll data, Public Authorities Law section 2985(14) says photographs and other recorded images prepared for a public authority's toll-violation enforcement are for that authority's exclusive use, are not open to the public, and may not be used in court except in toll-liability proceedings, and it bars making E-ZPass account holders' names and addresses available for commercial use without consent. It covers toll-enforcement images, not police plate reader networks, and we did not review Thruway or MTA retention rules.

What bills are pending in New York?

None of these is law.

A563A. This bill would add Executive Law section 94-a(3)(a)(17), directing the Department of State to "develop, maintain and disseminate a minimum standards policy governing the use of automatic license plate reader systems by non-law enforcement entities and non-government entities." It would also add General Business Law section 399-zzzzzz, requiring those entities to post the policy. It does not amend Executive Law section 840 and does not reach police. It sets no retention period, purpose limit or penalty itself, though the required policy must address permissible uses, data sharing, prohibited uses, record retention and training, and it takes effect one year after it becomes law, with rulemaking authorized immediately.

The bill's history, from the Assembly action list: it passed the Assembly on May 5, 2025, died in the Senate on January 7, 2026, passed the Assembly again on January 12, 2026, and on June 4, 2026 was substituted for S10227 and passed the Senate. The action list we retrieved on September 30, 2026 showed no delivery to the Governor, signature, chapter or veto. The Senate website labels the bill "Passed Senate & Assembly," which is a status label, not a delivery. A delivery after our retrieval cannot be excluded. In New York the Governor's time to act runs from delivery of a bill, not from passage. Treat A563A as not law unless the bill page shows a chapter number.

A907A, S963 and S10419. A907A would add a subdivision to Executive Law section 840 directing the Municipal Police Training Council to develop a minimum-standards policy on permissible uses, data sharing, prohibited uses, retention and training, and would require state and local law enforcement agencies to post it. It says "Nothing in this subdivision shall prohibit any state or local law enforcement agency from implementing more stringent standards for the use of automatic license plate reader systems." A907A was reported on April 21, 2026 and advanced to third reading on April 23, 2026, and has not passed. S963 and S10419 cover the same subject and were in Senate committee when we checked.

S7713A and A8779B. S7713A would add General Business Law section 394-j, barring plate reader users from selling, sharing or giving access to plate reader information to any state or local jurisdiction for investigating or enforcing a law that denies or interferes with a person's right to obtain reproductive health care or other lawful health care. It passed the Senate on May 14, 2026 and was referred to the Assembly consumer affairs committee, where its Assembly version, A8779B, also sits.

A10808 and S9890. These identical bills would add General Business Law section 397-c. Government entities could use plate readers only for listed purposes, captured plate data would have to be deleted within 48 hours with listed exceptions, and sharing outside New York state government would be barred except under a federal judicial warrant or order, a limited out-of-state judicial warrant, to defense counsel, in discovery or under FOIL. Buying privately captured plate data would need a probable cause warrant. The bills would also create an exclusionary rule and a private action for actual damages or $1,000 liquidated damages plus attorney's fees, and would amend Public Authorities Law section 2985 to cover captured plate data. A10808 was in an Assembly committee as of April 1, 2026 and S9890 in a Senate committee as of April 13, 2026.

What policies govern New York agencies?

Without a statute, retention and sharing are set by each agency. The New York City Police Department's License Plate Readers Impact and Use Policy, updated February 4, 2026 to comply with Local Law 56 of 2025, an amendment to the POST Act, states that "Data collected through NYPD's LPRs is retained for five (5) years." The policy says retention follows the department's schedule approved under New York City Charter section 1133, that information "is not shared in furtherance of immigration enforcement," and that the public may request plate reader data under the state FOIL. It also says searches of its Domain Awareness System (DAS) are auditable. This is a city agency policy, not state law, and it does not describe any other New York agency.

A state Municipal Police Training Council and Division of Criminal Justice Services model policy from June 2022 appears to exist, but we could not open it, so we say nothing about its contents.

Do general New York laws reach plate reader data?

We read the text of two immigration-related provisions, and neither reaches plate reader data held by police.

Executive Law section 319-a. It bars a "state employee" from disclosing an individual's personally identifiable information to an immigration authority, with a list that begins "including, but not limited to, a person's name, social security number, physical description, any associated addresses." The list does not name plate numbers or location. Section 319 defines state employee to exclude police officers, peace officers and civilian employees of a state law enforcement agency (the State Police, the corrections department and the Department of Law) whose duties involve evidence or intelligence, so the section does not reach State Police or local police plate reader data. Its exceptions cover 8 U.S.C. 1373, orders and warrants of Article III or federal magistrate judges, and complying with requirements under existing law. The article was added in 2026, together with a parallel rule for municipal employees in General Municipal Law section 996-a, which the New York State Association of Chiefs of Police describes as likewise excluding police. We do not claim either reaches plate reader data.

Vehicle and Traffic Law section 201(12). It separately bars the DMV from disclosing DMV records to agencies that primarily enforce immigration law without a court order or judicial warrant. It concerns DMV records, not data from plate readers, though it also requires anyone who receives DMV records to certify that it will not use them for civil immigration purposes or, apart from a narrow exception for cooperative arrangements that do not enforce immigration law, disclose them to those agencies.

Neither provision mentions plate readers. Executive Law section 170-k, also added in 2026, bars local governments and law enforcement agencies from 287(g) agreements, including any formal or informal agreement under which an officer or employee may engage in or assist immigration enforcement; it does not mention plate reader data either. A563A and A907A, described above, would be the first enacted rules addressed to plate readers if they became law.

Are New York plate reader records public?

FOIL (Public Officers Law article 6) applies, and a trial court has addressed it for plate reader data. In Gannett Co., Inc. v County of Monroe, 47 Misc 3d 898 (Sup Ct, Monroe County, January 22, 2015), a county had refused a newspaper's FOIL requests for plate reader records on nine specific plates: seven registered to the paper's employees, one to Monroe County and one to the City of Rochester. Reading the opinion, the county's denial cited Public Officers Law section 87(2)(b) and (e)(i) without a particularized and specific justification, and the court agreed with the newspaper's contentions subject to concerns the county raised.

The opinion also reasons that a single recorded read is not an invasion of privacy, but that accumulated reads about another individual's plate may be withheld as an unwarranted invasion of privacy where disclosure would cause hardship, with FOIL appeals officers keeping discretion; no one in that case had requested another person's plate. An individual can obtain data on his or her own plate by providing identification, reasonable proof of ownership and a written consent. Reads from municipal vehicles are disclosable unless the vehicle is assigned to an individual for personal use, and a law enforcement agency can assert the exemption in section 87(2)(e)(i) for a specific ongoing investigation. The opinion records that Monroe County stored plate reader data for five years. This is a 2015 Supreme Court (trial-level) decision applying the statute to one county's records, so it is not binding on other courts, and we did not check later history.

What have New York courts said about the constitution and plate readers?

We found no New York appellate holding on plate reader network data under article I, section 12 of the state constitution. The closest authority is People v Weaver, 12 NY3d 433 (2009), where the Court of Appeals held that "Under our State Constitution, in the absence of exigent circumstances, the installation and use of a GPS device to monitor an individual's whereabouts requires a warrant supported by probable cause." That case concerned a GPS device attached to a vehicle, not a plate reader, and we cite it only as context for how the state court has read section 12.

Umemoto v. Westchester County Police Department. The Knight First Amendment Institute's case page describes Index No. 65935/2026 (Supreme Court, Westchester County), filed June 9, 2026 by the Institute, the New York Civil Liberties Union, the Policing Project and Freshfields. The plaintiffs allege that the county's vehicle surveillance system violates the state constitution's search-and-seizure protections and exceeds legal authority, and they seek declaratory and injunctive relief. The case page says the defendants moved to dismiss on September 11, 2026 and that briefing is ongoing. These are allegations by the plaintiffs, sourced to a litigant's own page, not court findings. No court has ruled on them as far as we found.

What do we know about local deployments?

Our deployment records list two New York entries, and the list is not complete. Spectrum News reported on March 23, 2026 that the Syracuse Common Council revoked the city's contract with Flock and that the city had decided to go with Axon instead. Our records list the Syracuse Police Department's Flock deployment as ended, but the report does not say the city stopped using plate readers. WBNG reported on July 24, 2026 that the Binghamton City Council was reviewing Flock license plate reader contracts amid a data privacy debate, and our records list the Binghamton Police Department's deployment as active. We did not open the city policies for either.

How can I check my local system?

Ask the operating agency for its written policy, its retention setting, who may search the data, whether it shares with out-of-state or federal agencies, and its vendor contract. The NYPD policy above shows the kinds of items a policy may state. A request for records would be made under FOIL, keeping the Gannett framework in mind while noting it is a trial-court decision. For the technology, see What are Flock cameras?.

When should this page be rechecked?

A563A should be rechecked for delivery to the Governor, signature, chapter number or veto. We suggest rechecking around December 31, 2026. A563A and A907A would each take effect one year after becoming law.

Last updated: September 30, 2026. This page reflects the statutes and records described above as we reviewed them; it is general legal information, not legal advice.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is it legal to use a license plate reader in New York?

We found no enacted New York statute that prohibits, authorizes or regulates plate readers. Several areas of the law were not enumerated, so the finding is limited to the titles and sections we opened.

Is there a New York plate reader bill that passed?

A563A passed both houses in 2026 but covers only non-law-enforcement and non-government users. The Assembly action list we retrieved on September 30, 2026 showed no delivery to the Governor, so we treat it as not law.

How long does the NYPD keep license plate reader data?

The NYPD's policy, updated February 4, 2026, says plate reader data is retained for five years. That is city agency policy, not state law, and it does not describe other New York agencies.

Can I request New York plate reader records under FOIL?

FOIL applies. A 2015 trial-court decision, Gannett v County of Monroe, largely sided with a newspaper whose request the county had denied without a particularized justification, said accumulated reads about another person's plate may be withheld on privacy grounds where disclosure would cause hardship, and let a plate owner obtain data on his or her own plate with consent and proof of ownership.

Does New York law bar sharing plate data with ICE?

We found no New York statute that does so by its terms. Executive Law section 319-a, added in 2026, bars state employees from disclosing personal information to immigration authorities, but its definition of state employee excludes police officers, peace officers and State Police civilian analysts, and its list does not name plate numbers. The NYPD policy states that information is not shared in furtherance of immigration enforcement.

What is Umemoto v. Westchester County Police Department?

It is a pending state court lawsuit filed June 9, 2026 by civil liberties groups, alleging that Westchester County's vehicle surveillance system violates the state constitution. The defendants moved to dismiss on September 11, 2026. These are the plaintiffs' allegations, and no court has ruled on them.