Privacy Policy
Effective August 6, 2026 · Vision Parking Systems LLC
This policy explains what Vision Parking Systems LLC ("VPS," "we") collects when you pay for parking or park at a location we serve, why we collect it, who sees it, and how long we keep it.
What we collect
When you pay for parking
- License plate — the plate you enter, which is how your payment is matched to your vehicle.
- Session details — location, amount, duration, start and expiry time, and any validation code used.
- Payment information — handled by Square, Inc. on their hosted checkout page. VPS never receives or stores your full card number. We receive a confirmation, a payment reference, and (if you provide it) your email address and name for the receipt.
- Email address — only if you enter one to save your plate or to receive a receipt.
From cameras and enforcement
- License-plate images and reads — fixed cameras at some locations and vehicle-mounted patrol equipment photograph vehicles and read plates automatically, with a timestamp and the location.
- Vehicle characteristics — some equipment records approximate make, model, and color.
- Location data — patrol vehicles may record GPS coordinates with a read, showing where a vehicle was seen. We do not track vehicles between locations or build movement profiles.
- Citation evidence — if a citation is issued, photographs of the vehicle and plate are retained as part of the citation record.
On your device
- A "remember my plate" cookie. If you choose to save your plate, we store it in a cookie on that browser for up to one year so it is pre-filled next time. It holds only the plate. You can clear it any time by clearing your browser's cookies for this site.
- We do not use advertising or third-party tracking cookies.
Text messages
If you give us a mobile number, we use it only to text you about your own parking — a reminder before your time expires, or a notice about a citation for your vehicle. Message frequency depends on how often you park. Message and data rates may apply. Reply STOP to any message to stop all further texts, or HELP for support. We never sell or share mobile numbers, and we never use them for marketing.
Why we collect it
- To take your payment and give you a valid parking session.
- To show enforcement that your vehicle is paid, so you are not cited.
- To let the property enforce its rules against vehicles that have not paid.
- To issue, document, and review citations and disputes.
- To provide receipts and respond to support requests.
- To keep financial records and meet legal and tax obligations.
- To operate, secure, and improve the accuracy of the system — including improving plate-reading accuracy using our own recorded images.
Who we share it with
- The property owner or operator where you parked — session, enforcement, and citation data for their location.
- Google Cloud (Cloud Run, Cloud SQL, Cloud Storage) — Hosting, database and photo storage, processed in us-west1 (Oregon, USA); database backups in the US multi-region.
- Plate Recognizer — License plate recognition, processed in Cloud API, or on-premise where deployed.
- Resend — Transactional email delivery, processed in United States.
- Square — Card payment processing, processed in United States.
- Twilio — SMS alerts to operator staff, processed in United States.
- Collections or citation-processing agents — only for unpaid citations, and only the data needed to pursue them.
- Law enforcement — on a warrant or court order, as described below.
We do not sell your personal information, and we do not share it for advertising.
How long we keep it
| Data | Retention |
|---|---|
| Plate reads of a visiting vehicle, where no citation was issued | 7 days, then deleted automatically |
| Plate reads and gate records of a vehicle on a monthly or contract parking agreement, taken during that agreement | 21 days, then deleted automatically. Kept longer than a visitor's because it is what answers a billing or refund question about your own account. |
| Record of a visit — when a vehicle arrived and left | Deleted with the reads it was built from, on the same schedule as the row above that applies to you. If we never record the vehicle leaving, the visit is closed automatically after 30 days with no further sighting — dated to when the vehicle was last actually seen, not to the day we closed it — and then deleted on that same schedule. |
| Photographs taken by an enforcement attendant where no citation was issued | 7 days, then deleted automatically |
| Evidence photographs of a cited vehicle | Kept while the citation is open, then deleted 120 days after it is paid, voided, decided on appeal, or written off. A citation nobody resolves is written off 150 days after it is issued, which starts that clock. |
| Monthly or contract parking account — plate, name, contact details, and any card or hangtag issued to you | Deleted 120 days after the agreement ends. The billing history of what you were charged and paid is kept to the financial period below. |
| Camera behaviour events and their snapshots, where not escalated to a recorded incident | 90 days, then deleted automatically |
| Our record of our own people looking at your data — who viewed, searched or exported it, and what they searched for | 730 days, then deleted automatically. Kept longer than the data it describes on purpose: if the log expired first, "who looked at this?" would have no answer. |
| Live camera view held for an operator watching a screen | 15 minutes, then deleted automatically |
| Parking session and payment records | Kept at least 7 years, because tax and financial rules require it. Not deleted automatically. |
| The citation record itself — number, date, plate, amount, and how it was resolved | Kept at least 3 years, and longer while a dispute or collection is unresolved. Not deleted automatically — this is a financial record. Its photographs are deleted earlier, on the schedule above. |
| Saved plate and email address | Until you ask us to delete it |
| Recorded video from patrol equipment | Overwritten on a rolling 72-hour cycle by the recorder itself. This video is not uploaded to us. |
| Recorded video from fixed cameras at a property | Overwritten on a rolling cycle of up to 30 days by the on-site recorder. This video is not uploaded to us. |
Where this table says deleted automatically, a scheduled job removes the records and their images on the stated schedule, whether or not anyone asks. Some periods differ by your relationship to the property: a visiting vehicle's reads are kept for the shortest time, because nothing needs them, and a monthly account's are kept a little longer only so that we can answer a question about your own billing. Where it says at least, the period is a minimum we are required to keep rather than a point at which we delete. Where it says not uploaded to us, the footage stays on equipment at the property and is rotated there; we publish the window so that this page is not silent about it, not because we erase it for you.
When a deletion becomes final
Deleting a record from the live system is not the last copy of it, and this page would be misleading if it stopped at the table above. Two things outlive a deletion by a known amount:
- Database backups. A backup is taken every day at 09:00 UTC and 30 are kept, so a deleted record can still exist inside a backup for up to 30 days after it is gone from the live system. Point-in-time recovery holds a further 7 days of transaction logs.
- Deleted photographs. When the scheduled job deletes a photograph, our storage provider keeps a recoverable copy for 7 more days before it becomes unrecoverable.
Backups are not exempt from the periods in the table, and the reason is worth stating rather than simply being asserted: every deletion job works on the age of a record and runs every day. A record brought back by a restore is already older than its retention period, so the next run deletes it again. A backup lengthens the window by its own age; it does not start it over.
The one case that needs a person rather than a schedule is a restore itself. Between a restore finishing and the next scheduled run at 10:30 UTC, restored records are live — at most 24 hours — so the deletion job is run by hand after a restore instead of waited for.
When law enforcement asks for your data
We require a warrant or court order for license plate data. A subpoena is not enough, and a request on one is refused: Washington law (RCW 10.130.050(4)) provides that an agency may obtain privately held automated license plate reader data only on a valid, court-issued, probable cause warrant. We hold ourselves to that standard everywhere we operate, not only in Washington.
Every request is written down before it is answered — who asked, the instrument it arrived on, what was asked for, and who decided — and the system will not produce a disclosure unless that record shows both a sufficient instrument and a decision to grant it by a named reviewer. We disclose only what the request actually names: a demand with no plate and no date range returns nothing rather than everything.
We also tell the property owner that a request arrived, so they can respond, except where a court order forbids us from telling them — in which case we record that it was withheld and why. In a genuine emergency involving a risk of serious harm we may act before the paperwork arrives, but we set a deadline for it, and a request where the promised warrant never came is flagged rather than quietly closed.
If we are asked to preserve data pending a warrant, we place a hold that stops our automatic deletion for exactly that data, and that hold is released only by a person, never on a timer.
Who inside our company can see it, and how we know
Administrator access is by individual named account. Every time one of our people, or one of the property's, views, searches or exports plate data, we record who it was, when, and what they searched for. Exports and emailed reports are recorded the same way, with the number of records and where they were sent — and if that record cannot be written, the export does not happen. Equipment at a property is recorded too, so a device pulling a credential list is as visible as a person running a search.
That log is deliberately not a way to look anyone up. It can be reviewed by who used the system, when, at which property and what kind of data they reached — not by license plate. Nobody can delete an entry; they age out on the schedule in the table above, and nothing else removes them.
Your choices and rights
- Access or deletion. Email us and we will tell you what we hold about a plate or email address, and delete what we are not required to keep. We cannot delete records tied to an unresolved citation or required for financial recordkeeping.
- Correction. If a plate or session detail is wrong, tell us and we will fix it.
- Saved plate. Ask us to remove a saved plate and email, or clear your browser cookies for this site.
- Depending on where you live, you may have additional rights under state privacy law. Contact us and we will honor them where they apply.
To make a request, email privacy@visionparking.net. We may need to verify your connection to the plate or account before acting.
Security
Data is transmitted over encrypted connections and stored in access-controlled cloud infrastructure with automated backups. Card data never touches our systems. No system is perfectly secure, but we work to protect what we hold and to collect no more than we need.
Children
The service is intended for licensed drivers and is not directed at children under 13. We do not knowingly collect their information.
Changes
We may update this policy. Material changes will be reflected in the effective date above.
Contact
Vision Parking Systems LLC
522 W RIVERSIDE AVE #8525, Spokane, WA 99201
privacy@visionparking.net · (425) 725-7275