# Act 707 of 2023 (SB 481) — Amending A.C.A. §§ 27-52-110 and 27-52-111 (Automated Enforcement Device Statutes) > *The enrolled text of Arkansas Act 707 of the 2023 Regular Session, formerly Senate Bill 481: "An Act To Amend The Law Concerning The Operation Of An Automated Enforcement Device." Approved by Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders on April 11, 2023; effective August 1, 2023 (standard 91-day-post-session date). Sponsored by Senator Kim Hammer (Senate) and Representative Lanny Fite (House). The Act amends both **A.C.A. § 27-52-110** (county and outside-municipality state-agency automated-enforcement-device rules) and **A.C.A. § 27-52-111** (municipal and inside-municipality state-agency automated-enforcement-device rules) to add (a) the explicit "Highway work zone" definition and exception, (b) the requirement that a certified LEO be present at the device, and (c) the data-retention rule prohibiting retention of automated-enforcement-device data not related to an active criminal or civil investigation. This is the **Tier-2 statutory anchor** for the Pulaski County contract file's [[A.C.A. § 27-52-110 — County Automated Enforcement Device Statute|Westlaw printout]] reference and for the Arkansas State Police ALPR deployment's statutory-context analysis.* ## Source metadata - **Publisher:** Arkansas General Assembly (arkleg.state.ar.us) - **URL:** https://arkleg.state.ar.us/Home/FTPDocument?path=/ACTS/2023R/Public/ACT707.pdf - **Archived:** 2026-06-05 via PowerShell Invoke-WebRequest + dump_pdf.py text extraction - **Wayback snapshot:** save pending; retry queued - **Original PDF:** 4 pages, 253,064 bytes, sha256 f32bc6a97e0ce3e2865ff8c32b33c353c60c65a13a12ae2fb11cec40da6562f7 ## Operative provisions — verbatim from enrolled Act ### § 27-52-110 (post-2023-amendment) — county / outside-municipality automated enforcement devices **Note on the enrolled-Act text vs. codified text.** The arkleg-published enrolled Act 707 PDF format uses positional convention (stricken/underlined) to indicate deletions and additions to existing law, but the PDF-to-text OCR strips that visual formatting. Cross-referencing the codified post-Act-707 text on Justia confirms that Act 707 **removed** the "photo-radar" qualifier in § 27-52-110(a)(1)(A) — the codified post-amendment text reads "Uses a device that is capable of detecting a speeding violation" (no "photo-radar" qualifier), broadening the definition. The pre-Act-707 (2020) Justia version read "Uses a photo-radar device that is capable of detecting a speeding violation." The verbatim post-amendment codified text is therefore (primary public record, Justia 2024 codification cross-reference): > *"27-52-110. Automated enforcement device operated by county government or department of state government operating outside municipality — Definitions.* > > *(a) As used in this section: (1) 'Automated enforcement device' means a system operated by a county government or a department of state government that is operating outside of a municipality that: (A) Uses a device that is capable of detecting a speeding violation; and (B) Photographs or records an image of the vehicle used in committing the violation, the operator of the vehicle, or the license plate of the vehicle; and (2) 'Highway work zone' means the area upon or adjacent to a controlled-access highway of this state where construction, reconstruction, or maintenance work is performed; and (3) 'Municipality' means a city of the first class, a city of the second class, or an incorporated town."* > *"(b) Except as used under subsection (c) of this section, an automated enforcement device shall not be used by a law enforcement agency of a county or a department of state government that is operating outside of a municipality to detect or enforce: (1) A violation of the traffic laws, rules, or regulations of the State of Arkansas; or (2) An ordinance of the municipality."* > *"(c)(1) A county government or a department of state government that is operating outside of a municipality may use an automated enforcement device to detect and enforce a violation of traffic laws or ordinances: (A) In a school zone; or (B) At a railroad crossing; or (C) In a highway work zone. (2) If a county or a department of state government that is operating outside of a municipality uses an automated enforcement device, then a certified law enforcement officer must: (A) Be present with the automated enforcement device; and (B) Issue the citation to the violator at the time and place of the violation."* > *"(d) This section shall not prevent the Arkansas Highway Police Division of the Arkansas Department of Transportation from using automated enforcement devices to enforce state or federal motor carrier laws."* > *"(e) Automated enforcement device data that is not related to an active criminal or civil investigation shall not be retained by a county government or a department of state government."* ### § 27-52-111 (post-2023-amendment) — municipal / inside-municipality automated enforcement devices § 27-52-111 contains structurally parallel provisions for municipalities and state agencies operating within municipality boundaries, with one notable difference at subsection (e): the municipal version permits retention of data **"related to an issued traffic citation or warning"** in addition to data "related to an active criminal or civil investigation" (the county version of (e) does not contain the citation/warning carve-out). ## Bill / Act identity | Field | Value | |---|---| | Bill number | SB 481 | | Act number | **Act 707 of 2023** | | Session | 94th General Assembly — 2023 Regular Session | | Senate sponsor | Senator Kim Hammer (R) | | House sponsor | Representative Lanny Fite (R) | | Approved (Governor Sanders) | 2023-04-11 | | Effective date | 2023-08-01 (standard 91-day-post-session date; no emergency clause) | | Sections amended | A.C.A. § 27-52-110, A.C.A. § 27-52-111 | ## Notes - **Tier: 2** — official Arkansas-General-Assembly-published enrolled Act, served from the Arkansas legislature's own arkleg.state.ar.us domain. - **Resolves the Tier-2-anchor backlog item** for A.C.A. § 27-52-110. Prior to this archive, the corpus had only the Pulaski County contract file's Westlaw printout of the post-amendment statute (Tier-3 by virtue of being a Westlaw rendering); the Tier-2 anchor — the actual Arkansas-General-Assembly-published enrolled Act — was a research backlog item flagged in the 2026-06-05 ASP-batch-1-ingest cycle. - **Definition of "Automated enforcement device" — Act 707 broadened it.** Pre-Act-707 (2020 code), the statute required "Uses a **photo-radar device** that is capable of detecting a speeding violation" — i.e., only photo-radar speed cameras qualified. Act 707 of 2023 **removed the "photo-radar" qualifier**, leaving "Uses a device that is capable of detecting a speeding violation" — now broader to any device with speed-detection capability. This broadens the device-definition substantially. Whether ALPR cameras (Flock, ELSAG, etc.) fall within the post-Act-707 definition turns on whether they are "capable of detecting a speeding violation." Some ALPR systems can perform speed estimation between two read points or with the addition of speed-detection modules; the corpus does not currently document whether ASP's ELSAG procurement or PCSO/LRPD/Conway PD's Flock procurements include speed-detection capability. The pre-Act-707 reading (that ALPR falls outside § 27-52-110 because it is not photo-radar) is no longer the only available reading; the analytical question is now whether the post-Act-707 device definition reaches ALPR. - **Subsection (b) is the operative prohibition.** "An automated enforcement device shall not be used by a law enforcement agency of a county or a department of state government that is operating outside of a municipality to detect or enforce: (1) A violation of the traffic laws... or (2) An ordinance of the municipality." If ALPR systems are "automated enforcement devices" under the broadened (a)(1) definition, then (b) prohibits their use to detect or enforce traffic-law or ordinance violations — but only in those particular use cases. ALPR's primary use cases (plate-of-interest matching, stolen-vehicle alerts, missing-persons/AMBER alerts, fugitive interdiction) are not "traffic law violations" or "ordinance violations" per se; they are criminal-investigation uses. So even if the device-definition reaches ALPR, the (b)-prohibition's scope may be limited. - **Subsection (e) retention rule** is potentially-applicable in a different direction: ALPR plate-read data retention by a county government or by ASP (as a "department of state government operating outside a municipality") would, on the broadest reading of subsection (e), be limited to data "related to an active criminal or civil investigation." Whether ALPR systems' default 30-day-or-longer retention practices are consistent with subsection (e) is an interpretive question the statute does not directly address, since ALPR systems are arguably not "automated enforcement devices" under (a)(1) (which is the device-definition that triggers all the statute's operative rules). - **Both county and municipal versions** (§§ 27-52-110 and 27-52-111) were updated in the same Act for parallel-construction. The municipal version (§ 27-52-111) is the analog for cities like Conway, Little Rock, Fayetteville — and would apply to municipal-LE ALPR procurements if ALPR devices qualified as "automated enforcement devices" under (a)(1). - **Sponsor context.** Sen. Kim Hammer (R, SD-33) and Rep. Lanny Fite (R, HD-86) authored the bill; this 2023 amendment is part of a multi-year statutory update of Arkansas's traffic-enforcement-device framework that runs alongside the [[Arkansas Automatic License Plate Reader System Act]] (the ALPR-specific framework at A.C.A. §§ 12-12-1801 et seq.).