Are Flock Cameras Legal in Montana? Yes, within the rules below. Flock’s license plate readers are lawful to operate in every state; the real question — the one this page answers — is what rules Montana puts on them: how long your plate data can be kept, who can search it, whether a warrant is needed, and what rights you have to see the record.
The rules exist, they have teeth, and knowing them is the difference between guessing and acting. All details are for general guidance, verified against Montana sources as of September 2026.
In This Montana Guide:
Are Flock Cameras Legal in Montana? The Short Answer
YES — Montana has an ALPR-specific statute. MCA 46-5-117 (“Use of license plate reader prohibited — exceptions — definition — penalty”) and MCA 46-5-118 (“Preservation and disclosure of records by law enforcement agency”), both enacted by House Bill 149 (2017), sponsored by then-Rep. Daniel Zolnikov (R-Billings), Chapter 202, Laws of 2017, signed by Gov. Steve Bullock and effective October 1, 2017. HB 149 passed the House 91-7 and the Senate 48-1.
Montana is one of roughly half the states that DOES have a statute — and its baseline rule is a prohibition, not a permission: an agency or employee of the state or any subdivision may not use, directly or indirectly, a license plate reader on any public highway, except as the statute allows.
Backstopped by Montana Constitution Art. II, Sec. 10 (right of privacy) and the 2022 voter-approved constitutional amendment requiring a warrant for electronic data. Note: Montana’s legislature meets only in odd-numbered years, so there was NO 2026 regular session and no 2026 ALPR act — the 2017 law is still the operative law today.
Montana is a preemption state, not a local-policy state — which is the opposite of the pattern in the roughly half of states with no ALPR statute. Because MCA 46-5-117 forbids any agency or employee of the state or any subdivision from operating a license plate reader on a public highway, a Montana city council cannot vote itself a Flock program on public streets the way councils in unregulated states do.
Cities’ remaining room is narrow: regulated parking enforcement, and MDT/municipal anonymized traffic-planning counts. Where a Montana agency does lawfully operate an ALPR, MCA 46-5-118 forces it to adopt and publicize a written use policy first, so the local policy exists but must be public.
Notable local situations: Bozeman police said they have no plans to use the technology even though it could assist investigations (KBZK); Missoula does not own Flock cameras or have direct system access, though law enforcement can reach shared data (Missoulian); Yellowstone County Sheriff Mike Linder said his office does not use Flock cameras although the company has approached him and other Montana agencies (KTVQ); around Billings roughly 24 Flock cameras have been mapped, and Bozeman about 4, most of them on private retail property.
The real-world Montana footprint is therefore mostly private — Home Depot, Lowe’s and Albertsons parking lots in Billings and Great Falls — because private companies may run cameras within their own property lines, and stores hand footage to police when a crime occurs.
What Montana Law Actually Requires
| Question | Rule in Montana |
|---|---|
| ALPR statute | YES — Montana has an ALPR-specific statute. MCA 46-5-117 (“Use of license plate reader prohibited — exceptions — definition — penalty”) and MCA 46-5-118 (“Preservation and disclosure of records by law enforcement agency”), both enacted by House Bill 149 (2017), sponsored by then-Rep. Daniel Zolnikov (R-Billings), Chapter 202, Laws of 2017, signed by Gov. Steve Bullock and effective October 1, 2017. HB 149 passed the House 91-7 and the Senate 48-1. Montana is one of roughly half the states that DOES have a statute — and its baseline rule is a prohibition, not a permission: an agency or employee of the state or any subdivision may not use, directly or indirectly, a license plate reader on any public highway, except as the statute allows. Backstopped by Montana Constitution Art. II, Sec. 10 (right of privacy) and the 2022 voter-approved constitutional amendment requiring a warrant for electronic data. Note: Montana’s legislature meets only in odd-numbered years, so there was NO 2026 regular session and no 2026 ALPR act — the 2017 law is still the operative law today. |
| Data retention | 90 DAYS by state law — stricter than Flock’s old 30-day default in kind, though longer in number, because it is a legal ceiling rather than a vendor setting. Under MCA 46-5-118, captured license plate data obtained by an ALPR system operated by or on behalf of a law enforcement agency for law enforcement purposes may not be preserved for more than 90 days after the date the data is captured. Data may be held past 90 days only pursuant to (a) a preservation request under the statute, (b) a state search warrant issued under MCA 46-5-220, or (c) a federal search warrant issued in compliance with the Federal Rules. One year from the date of an initial preservation request, the data must be destroyed under the custodian’s retention policy unless another preservation request arrives within that 1-year window, which resets the clock from the date of the second request. Flock’s own default retention was cut from 30 days to 7 days company-wide in August 2026, but in Montana the binding number is the statutory 90-day cap. |
| Who can search | Law enforcement, and only for enumerated purposes. Permitted law enforcement uses under HB 149 / MCA 46-5-117 are identifying stolen vehicles, locating missing persons, locating individuals with outstanding warrants, locating vehicles involved in homicides or other major crimes, and case-specific investigative surveillance. The suppression rule is the teeth: data collected without a search warrant, or outside judicially recognized exceptions to the warrant requirement, may not be used to investigate or prosecute an individual and may not be used as evidence in court. Non-law-enforcement exceptions are narrow: the Department of Transportation or an incorporated city or town may use an LPR to collect planning data only if anonymity of the vehicle, owner, driver and passengers is maintained; a regulated parking system may use one solely to identify a vehicle’s location and plate number to enforce parking restrictions; and MDT may use one for automatic vehicle identification screening at designated weigh stations, ports of entry, or agricultural interdiction facilities. Separately, Senate Bill 282 (2025), signed by Gov. Greg Gianforte on May 5, 2025, made Montana the first state to close the “law enforcement data broker loophole” — police may not purchase precise geolocation, communications content, electronic funds transfer records or sensitive data they would otherwise need a warrant to get; EFF praised the law on May 15, 2025. |
| Immigration use | NONE. Montana has no statute restricting ALPR use for immigration enforcement specifically, and no state sanctuary-style data firewall. The practical restraint is indirect: because MCA 46-5-117 bars state and local agencies from operating LPRs on public highways at all, Montana agencies generally have no public-roadway ALPR feed to share with federal immigration authorities in the first place. The exposure runs through private-property cameras and out-of-state networks instead. Nationally, Flock said it removed federal agencies from its national search network in August 2025 and that it has no ICE contract; audit-log reviews reported through 2026 nonetheless found local officers running searches with reasons logged as “ICE” or “immigration” on behalf of federal agencies. In January 2026 Flock added an admin toggle letting an agency switch off all federal sharing, plus keyword filters and a required offense-type dropdown. |
| Data sharing | No flat statutory ban on out-of-state or federal sharing, but sharing is constrained. MCA 46-5-118 requires every state or local law enforcement agency using an ALPR system to adopt and publicize a written policy BEFORE the system is operational, and that policy must address, among other things, sharing of the data with another law enforcement agency, use of any database to compare ALPR data, retention, operator training, and supervisory oversight. Federal access past 90 days requires a federal search warrant. Montana’s structural protection is again the underlying prohibition: contemporaneous coverage of HB 149 in 2017 (Reason, October 2, 2017; Tenth Amendment Center, September 2017) framed the law as blocking Montana’s contribution to a national license plate tracking database, and Montana is repeatedly described as one of the two states with the fewest license plate readers in the country. |
| Search audits | NONE as a specific statewide audit or search-log mandate. Montana law requires supervisory oversight and operator training to be addressed in each agency’s mandatory published written policy under MCA 46-5-118, but it does not by its terms require periodic audits, published search logs, or an annual transparency report the way some newer state ALPR laws do. Any auditing in Montana therefore comes from the agency’s own policy, from Flock’s platform-level audit features, or from records requests. Flock announced mandatory search audits flagging “atypical search behaviors” and a requirement that officers enter a records-management case code before running a search, in its August 2026 announcement — vendor policy, not Montana law. |
The retention number is the one to watch. Flock’s national default is 30 days; some states now force shorter windows by statute, and where Montana law is silent, the local contract decides. When people ask “are flock cameras legal in Montana,” the retention and search rules above are usually what they actually need to know.
Misuse penalties: For public employees and public officers, MCA 46-5-117 provides that a violation subjects the person to the applicable penalties in Title 2, chapter 2 — Montana’s Code of Ethics. Under MCA 2-2-136, the Commissioner of Political Practices may impose an administrative penalty of not less than $50 and not more than $1,000 for a general ethics violation (rising to not less than $500 and not more than $10,000 for a violation of 2-2-121(4)(b)), and may recommend that the employing agency discipline the employee; the employing entity may discipline regardless of whether the commissioner recommends it.
The parallel, and often more consequential, sanction is evidentiary: unlawfully collected ALPR data may not be used to investigate or prosecute an individual or admitted as evidence. Separately, SB 397 (2023), also a Zolnikov bill, created penalties including fines, damages and discipline of individual government employees for unlawful government surveillance and facial recognition use. Montana law does not set a distinct criminal penalty aimed at civilian misuse of ALPR data.
Your Rights: Seeing What Montana Has on Your Plate
Knowing whether are flock cameras legal in Montana is only half the question — the other half is what you can see about your own plate. Montana gives drivers an unusually direct path. MCA 46-5-118 provides that license plate data captured in accordance with 46-5-117 is a public record but is protected from disclosure under Title 2, chapter 6, parts 10 through 12, EXCEPT to the person to whom the license plate is registered.
In plain terms: the data is shielded from the general public, but the registered owner is the one person expressly entitled to it.
To use this, a Montana driver submits a written request to the records custodian of the agency that operates or holds the data — the city police department, sheriff’s office, Montana Highway Patrol, or the parking authority — identifying themselves as the registered owner of the plate, attaching proof of registration, and citing MCA 46-5-118 together with Montana Constitution Art.
II, Sec. 9 (Right to Know) and the public records procedures in Title 2. Many drivers can get a response this way, though what exists to disclose is limited by the 90-day destruction rule, so you may be able to recover far less if you wait — request promptly. Where the camera is a private retailer’s Flock unit rather than a government system, the public records route does not reach it; that gap is the subject of pending draft legislation below.
For statewide guidance, check with the Montana Department of Justice / Office of the Attorney General, and confirm procedures with the specific agency’s custodian.
A records request is the single most useful lawful move for a driver asking are flock cameras legal in Montana: it is free or cheap, it forces the agency to state its rules on paper, and the answers feed every other channel — council testimony, comments on pending bills, or a lawyer if the logs show misuse. If a camera-based citation is the concern, the Flock camera ticket guide for Montana covers that side.
The bills and rulings below are what will change the answer to are flock cameras legal in Montana next — each item is dated, and this section is refreshed as they move.
Montana ALPR Bills and Rulings in Motion
Montana held NO regular legislative session in 2026 — it is one of four states (with Nevada, North Dakota and Texas) that meet only in odd-numbered years, so the next regular session convenes in January 2027 and 2026 is an interim study/bill-drafting year. That means there is no ALPR bill currently moving on the floor. What is dated and verifiable: (1) July 24, 2026 — KRTV/KPAX (Great Falls) reported that Sen.
Daniel Zolnikov has a first draft of a bill for the 2027 session that would require law enforcement to obtain a warrant before accessing license plate data collected by PRIVATE surveillance systems such as Flock cameras at retailers, closing the private-property gap the 2017 law does not cover, and would work to keep Montana plate data out of national databases; the draft is not yet an introduced, numbered bill.
(2) May 5, 2025 — SB 282 signed into law (enacted, not pending), closing the law enforcement data broker loophole. Prior enacted history: SB 397 (2023) on facial recognition and privacy; HB 149 (2017), the ALPR act itself. Check bills.legmt.gov for a bill number once the 2027 session opens.
Where communities have pushed back, it shows up here: cancellations, lawsuits, and documented cases — the practical backdrop to are flock cameras legal in Montana, reported as cases and charges only.
📨 Get Free Traffic Ticket Guides Alerts
Free · No spam · Unsubscribe anytime
The Backlash in Montana: Cancellations, Lawsuits & Cases
Montana-specific, dated: (1) August 2026 — Butte-Silver Bow. Commissioner Russ O’Leary asked the county attorney to examine whether “SafetyStick” devices installed at some Butte intersections in 2024 violate Montana privacy law and whether their data could be shared with third-party systems such as Flock Safety. County Attorney Matt Enrooth returned six recommendations for the county’s contract with vendor Municipal Parking Services; the vendor stated it does not use Flock cameras in SafetySticks and does not share information with third parties absent written consent from Butte-Silver Bow or a court order.
Reported by KXLF/KBZK. Outcome: contract under review, no litigation filed. (2) July 24, 2026 — Great Falls. KRTV/KPAX documented Flock cameras already scanning plates at a Home Depot lot and other retailers, prompting the legislative response above. Outcome: no enforcement action; identified as a statutory gap. (3) Through 2025-2026 — Bozeman and Missoula coverage (KBZK, Missoulian, Montana Right Now, Fairfield Sun Times) recording public privacy objections; Bozeman PD publicly declined to adopt the technology.
National context touching Montana drivers whose plates travel: February 27, 2026 — a class action against Flock filed by Gibbs Mura alleging the nationwide camera network enables stalking and personal surveillance (pending); July 26, 2026 — CNN investigation into police misuse; August 2026 — a Washington Post review of police and court records found at least 50 officers charged with or accused of misusing ALPR systems, Flock implicated in 46, including a former Richmond County, Georgia deputy who searched one woman’s plate 1,639 times; February 17, 2026 — Montana Public Radio reported at least 30 localities nationally had deactivated Flock cameras or cancelled contracts since the start of 2026, and August 22, 2026 MTPR reported rival vendors moving into the gap.
NONE verified for Montana on the vandalism front — no Montana prosecutions or charges for damaging ALPR cameras were found in the record.
What Flock and Other Vendors Are Saying
(1) August 13-19, 2026 — Flock Safety publicly announced platform changes in response to nationwide backlash: default footage retention cut from 30 days to 7 days; mandatory search audits flagging “atypical search behaviors”; and a requirement that officers enter a code from their records management system tying each search to a specific case before running it.
CEO Garrett Langley said many previously optional guardrails become mandatory for customers by January 1. Reported by the Washington Times (August 13, 2026), Claims Journal (August 19, 2026), Fox Business, NBC Montana and Local 12.
Critics on the record: the ACLU called the shorter retention window “a step in the right direction” but the rest “retreads”; Robert Frommer of the Institute for Justice called the package “window dressing” from a company in “panic mode”; reporting noted both changes can be overridden, including via a setting called Evidence Mode.
(2) August 23, 2026 — Langley publicly called for “compromise” on privacy as backlash grew (TechCrunch, Futurism). (3) January 2026 — Flock added a single admin toggle letting any agency disable all federal sharing, plus keyword filters blocking searches tied to civil immigration or reproductive healthcare where state law forbids them.
(4) August 2025 — Flock removed federal agencies from its national search network and has stated publicly it holds no contract with ICE. NONE of these are Montana-specific statements; Flock has issued no separate public response directed at Montana law.
Key Takeaways: Are Flock Cameras Legal in Montana
- Start with the statute question: the honest answer to “are flock cameras legal in Montana” begins with whether Montana has any ALPR law at all — and where it does not, vendor defaults and local contracts are the only rules.
- Retention is the number that matters: when drivers ask “are flock cameras legal in Montana”, what they usually need is how long a plate read is kept and who can search it, both covered in the table above.
- Your city may answer differently than your state: because local policy fills the gap, “are flock cameras legal in Montana” can have one answer in one town and another across the line.
- A records request is the lawful lever: for anyone asking “are flock cameras legal in Montana”, the search logs and the written policy are obtainable under the public-records law, and they are what changes council votes.
- Bills move monthly: the dated sections above are refreshed because the answer to “are flock cameras legal in Montana” is being rewritten in real time by legislation and court rulings.
- Cancellations are facts, not rumors: the backlash section records which Montana communities have ended contracts and why — the practical backdrop to “are flock cameras legal in Montana”.
- Damaging a camera is a crime: the lawful channels are the ones that work, and the cases above show the charges that follow the other route.
- Check the date on everything: including this page — the verification date is printed above, because “are flock cameras legal in Montana” is a moving answer.
- Vendor statements are not law: a company’s retention promise can change by press release; “are flock cameras legal in Montana” is answered by statute and contract, which is why both are quoted above.
- Sharing is the quiet issue: a plate read in Montana can be searchable by agencies elsewhere by default, and “are flock cameras legal in Montana” includes whether the local contract turned that off.
Bottom line on are flock cameras legal in Montana: confirm the current rule at the official sources below, keep every notice and envelope, and treat the dated sections of this page as the record of what changed and when.
Montana FAQ: Are Flock Cameras Legal in Montana
Can I find out if police searched my plate in Montana?
Often, yes. ALPR search logs are records, and public-records laws reach many of them — the request path in the rights section above is the route. Some state statutes require agencies to keep audit logs precisely so this question is answerable. Expect exemptions for active investigations, but the policy, the retention schedule, and aggregate search data are routinely producible.
Do Flock cameras use facial recognition?
No — the cameras photograph vehicles and plates, not faces, and the company states the system does not identify drivers or passengers. The privacy concern is different and real: a network of timestamped plate captures builds a movement history of your vehicle, which is why retention limits and search rules are where every serious legal fight is happening.
Is it illegal to block or damage a Flock camera in Montana?
Damaging one is criminal property destruction — and prosecutions are real: vandalism cases around the country in 2026 have drawn felony charges, including over a police decoy camera. Blocking or obscuring one on public land can also draw obstruction or tampering charges depending on state law. The lawful channels — records requests, council testimony, pending bills — are covered above, and they are the ones actually cancelling contracts.
Why the Answer to “Are Flock Cameras Legal in Montana?” Keeps Changing
ALPR law is the rare corner of traffic law being written in real time. The cameras spread faster than legislatures could react, so the first rules were whatever the vendor’s defaults and each city’s contract said. Now the statutes are arriving — retention caps, search standards, immigration-use bans, audit duties — and every session moves the line somewhere. A page that answered “are flock cameras legal in Montana” correctly last year can be wrong this year.
The fights driving it are concrete: officers caught running personal searches, federal agencies reaching into local data, cities discovering their contracts allowed sharing they never intended. Each scandal produces a bill; each bill resets the rules. That is why the dated sections on this page exist and get refreshed — the statute table is the stable part, and everything else is a moving front.
For a driver, the takeaway is to check the date on anything you read about are flock cameras legal in Montana — including this page, which is why its verification date is printed above — and to anchor on the statute citations, which are the one part of this fight that is always checkable at the source.
Official Montana Sources & Resources
- Montana Legislature: https://leg.mt.gov
- Montana DMV: https://mvdmt.gov
- National Highway Traffic Safety Administration: nhtsa.gov
- Cornell Legal Information Institute: law.cornell.edu/wex
Statute reference: MCA 46-5-117 and MCA 46-5-118 (2017 Mont. Laws ch. 202, HB 149, effective October 1, 2017); related: MCA 46-5-220 (search warrants), MCA 2-2-136 (ethics penalties), SB 282 (2025) data broker warrant requirement, SB 397 (2023) facial recognition/privacy, Mont. Const. Art. II, Sec. 9 (Right to Know) and Sec. 10 (right of privacy).
Other Montana rules to know: (1) Montana’s rule is structured as a BAN with carve-outs, not a regulated-use permission — the default is that public-highway ALPR by government is illegal, which is why Montana has among the fewest license plate readers of any state. (2) The registered-owner disclosure right in MCA 46-5-118 is unusual: the data is a public record shielded from everyone EXCEPT the person whose plate it is.
(3) The written-use-policy mandate is a precondition — it must be adopted and publicized BEFORE the ALPR system goes operational, not afterward. (4) Montana voters amended the state constitution in 2022 to require a warrant for government access to electronic data and communications, passing with more support than any other issue or candidate on that ballot; this sits behind the ALPR statute.
(5) The live gap in 2026 is private-property cameras — retailers may run Flock units within their own property lines and voluntarily hand data to police, which the 2017 statute does not reach; the Zolnikov 2027 draft targets exactly this by requiring a warrant for police to obtain private ALPR data. (6) Montana’s biennial session calendar means no ALPR law can change before January 2027.
(7) Suppression is the strongest practical remedy — if you are facing a Montana charge built on ALPR data, ask your attorney whether MCA 46-5-117’s evidentiary bar applies; many drivers can raise it, but outcomes depend on the facts and your court.
This guide to are flock cameras legal in Montana was last verified against official sources in September 2026. ALPR law is the fastest-moving area of traffic law — the dated sections above are refreshed as developments land.
More Montana Traffic Ticket Guides
- Montana Speeding Ticket Cost
- Montana Driving Points & Suspension
- Speeding Ticket Cost Calculator
- All 50 States
Disclaimer: This guide is informational only and is not legal advice. Fines, points, and procedures are estimates for general guidance and change when state laws change. Always verify the exact amount and process with your state DMV or the court listed on your citation, and consult a licensed traffic attorney in your state for advice on your specific situation.