Can Police Sell Your License-Plate Data?

The short answer

No. Under North Carolina law, captured license-plate-reader data is confidential, is not a public record, and “shall not be sold for any purpose” (G.S. 20-183.32). A police agency cannot sell it, and it may be disclosed only to a criminal-justice officer, for a legitimate law-enforcement purpose, under a written request. On its face, the sale question is closed.

But the ban stops at the state line

Here is what the “we don’t sell it” answer leaves out: North Carolina’s prohibition binds North Carolina. Your plate read does not stay here. Flock runs a national network, and New Hanover’s cameras are searched overwhelmingly from outside the state — the single busiest searcher of the county’s cameras is a police department in Houston, Texas, a state with no plate-reader law at all. Once your movements are copied into a state with no guardrails, nothing there enforces North Carolina’s “shall not be sold.” The data-broker side of this industry is real — commercial ALPR databases are bought and sold routinely — and our statute simply doesn’t reach a Texas or Georgia agency that already holds a copy.

And the vendor’s rights go beyond “no sale”

The other gap isn’t the police agency — it’s the private company that runs the cameras. New Hanover’s Flock contract grants Flock a worldwide, perpetual, royalty-free license to use the data and to train its AI on it:

• Use and license, not “sale.” A vendor can be barred from selling data and still be permitted to use, analyze, and build products from it. Different words, different rules.
• Two copies. If the county’s copy is deleted at 90 days but the vendor keeps its own under a perpetual license, “deleted after 90 days” covers only one of them.
• Sharing isn’t selling — but it’s still exposure. The data travels a documented route out of the county, into a national pool, and past a federal side door.

The bottom line

Can a North Carolina police agency sell your plate data? No — the statute forbids it, and that’s real. But the ban reaches only NC agencies. It does not stop the same read from ending up in a state with no such rule, or from being used and monetized by the private vendor under a license. “We don’t sell it” is true, and it isn’t the whole story. Bring the question to the county on August 17.

Sources

• N.C. Gen. Stat. § 20-183.32 (captured data confidential; “shall not be sold for any purpose”) — NC General Assembly
• On the site: who is searching North Carolina’s Flock cameras · New Hanover’s plate data in Texas · where your plate data travels · the perpetual-license contract · are Flock cameras legal in NC?

This page is general information about North Carolina and federal law, not legal advice, and creates no attorney-client relationship. For advice about a specific situation, consult a licensed North Carolina attorney.