Georgia License Plate Reader Laws

Status at a glance

The statute: confirmed only indirectly

Georgia regulates law enforcement ALPR data in O.C.G.A. § 35-1-22. We haven’t been able to get the enacted or current text from an official free source, so this page doesn’t quote it. What we can report comes from official state documents that describe it:

• The Attorney General’s Official Opinion 2018-3 lists § 35-1-22(d)(1) among offenses from the 2018 legislative session. It describes the provision as making it “a misdemeanor of a high and aggravated nature” to knowingly request, use or obtain a law enforcement agency’s captured plate data under false pretenses or for a non-law-enforcement purpose.
• In a 2026 amicus brief, the State of Georgia described § 35-1-22(b) as “setting a maximum 30-month retention period.”
• The Department of Public Safety’s policy cites § 35-1-22(f) for the rule that captured LPR data “shall not be subject to public disclosure pursuant to the Georgia Open Records Act.”

These are descriptions of the statute, not the statute itself. Its exact wording, definitions and exceptions remain unverified.

Hernandez-Lopez: an alert as reasonable suspicion

In Hernandez-Lopez v. State, decided February 5, 2013, a Gwinnett County police officer patrolling State Route 316 received a “wanted person” alert from a patrol car LPR system. The alert said a male named Eloy Hernandez-Lopez was wanted for failure to appear in court. The officer saw an adult male driving the vehicle and stopped it. The driver was Salomon Hernandez-Lopez. “The officer learned that although the driver’s last name matched that of the wanted person—Hernandez-Lopez—his first name did not.” The driver had no license and was arrested for driving without one.

The Court of Appeals affirmed the denial of his motion to suppress:

“Here, based on the alert and information he received from the LPR system, the officer had reason to believe the male driver of the relevant vehicle was wanted for failure to appear in court, which provided reasonable, articulable suspicion to conduct a traffic stop.”

The court compared the system to running tags through the state crime information system: “The information retrieved via the LPR system is not unlike that an officer retrieves by way of running vehicle-tag numbers through GCIC, which we have previously held provides justification for an initial stop.” It said the system “merely aided the officer by augmenting his sensory faculties.”

The defendant also argued the system had to meet the foundation requirements used for radar devices. The court disagreed, because radar is used to prove the offense, “whereas the use of the LPR merely provides an officer with reasonable, articulable suspicion to justify an investigatory stop.” For the broader issue, see ALPR alert traffic stops.

What the court didn’t decide

In footnote 17, the court declined to address the argument that LPR use “is overly intrusive as it creates an unreasonable detention of an individual who may not have broken any laws or committed any traffic offense whatsoever” “because this argument was not made below.” The decision was about a single alert used for a stop. It didn’t address searches of stored location history. It also came before the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2018 decision in Carpenter and before the 2018 legislative session that, according to the Attorney General’s opinion, produced the statute’s misdemeanor provision. See is ALPR a search?

Department of Public Safety policy

The Georgia Department of Public Safety’s Policy 6.09, revised July 1, 2018, is one agency’s policy. It provides:

• “The use of LPR systems is restricted to legitimate law enforcement purposes.”
• Before a traffic stop on an LPR alert, the member must visually verify the plate characters and state of issuance, verify the plate’s current status through the communications center or MDT query, and “Make reasonable efforts to verify that the driver and/or occupants physically match the description of any wanted person(s).” An exception allows immediate action in a verifiable emergency for officer safety. “If an LPR alert cannot be verified, the alert will be rejected.”
• When a plate is manually entered into the system, the officer must document the reason.
• Data is stored “for a period not to exceed thirty months,” then purged unless it concerns a toll violation or an investigation.
• Sharing with other agencies is documented on a dissemination log and in a written agreement signed by the Commissioner.

Gwinnett County’s approach

The Gwinnett County Police Department’s ALPR FAQ, which is undated, describes its Flock program:

• Retention. “While Georgia law allows license plate images to be kept for up to 30 months, GCPD only retains Flock license plate images for 15 days.” The description of state law is Gwinnett’s. Images kept as evidence go to the department’s evidence system.
• Stops. The department says “officers cannot stop vehicles based on Flock alerts or searches alone” and must verify through NCIC/GCIC.
• Searches. Users “must be investigating a criminal offense and must provide a case number or call number,” and the department says it conducts monthly audits.
• Sharing. Gwinnett says state law limits sharing to other law enforcement agencies for law enforcement purposes. It also says “the State of Georgia requires data captured by Flock cameras installed on state routes to be shared with the Georgia State Patrol.”

Other Georgia agencies’ retention periods and practices may differ.

What this can mean in a Georgia case

• What did the alert actually say, and did the person stopped match it? In Hernandez-Lopez, the first names didn’t match.
• What verification steps did the agency’s policy require before the stop, and were they followed?
• Is the evidence a single alert, or a search of stored location history? Hernandez-Lopez addressed only the first.
• Which agency’s camera captured the data, and what is that agency’s retention period? Was the data still available when requested? See requesting ALPR records in discovery.
• Does the search record show a case number and a criminal offense being investigated?