How to get police and traffic camera video of a crash in New Hampshire

The public records law that gets you the video

Right-to-Know Law, RSA chapter 91-A (Access to Governmental Records and Meetings)

5 business days to respond in writing

Who may ask: every citizen has the right to inspect all governmental records in the possession, custody or control of public bodies and agencies and to copy them, except as a statute or RSA 91-A:5 prohibits (RSA 91-A:4, I); “to copy” includes electronic or tape recording, and records in electronic form are covered. Deadline: an agency must make a reasonably described record available for inspection and copying when it is immediately available. If it cannot, it must, within 5 business days of the request, make the record available, deny the request, or give a written statement of the time reasonably necessary to decide whether to grant or deny it, the reason for the delay, and an itemized estimate of any charge (RSA 91-A:4, IV(a), (b)). A denial in whole or in part must be a written statement naming the specific exemption and briefly explaining how it applies (IV(c)). The Attorney General’s memorandum adds that, under the Supreme Court’s ATV Watch decision, records that can be produced within five days must be produced within five days, and that the decision did not address how much time an agency may take beyond that; the statute speaks of the “time reasonably necessary.” Ask in writing: the Department of Safety, for example, asks that all requests be in writing with the date and a description of the specific records. Fees: when the agency uses its own computer, copier or other device to copy a record, you may be charged the actual cost of providing the copy; no fee may be charged for inspecting or delivering a record without copying it, except a charge of up to $1.00 per electronic communication beyond the first 250 when you request emails or similar communications (RSA 91-A:4, IV(d), VIII). An agency may give you electronic copies in standard or common file formats (RSA 91-A:4, V), and it does not have to compile information into a form it does not already keep (VII). The Department of Safety says it may charge fees to recover the actual costs of a request. Where to send it: to the agency that holds the video. The Department of Safety’s Right-to-Know page sends State Police records requests to SPHeadquarters@dos.nh.gov.

Police body camera and dashcam video

Body cam exempt; 3 exceptions

Body cameras: video and audio recordings made by an officer using a body-worn camera under RSA 105-D are exempt from the Right-to-Know Law except where they depict (a) any restraint or use of force by an officer, (b) the discharge of a firearm, or (c) an encounter that results in an arrest for a felony-level offense, and even in those cases portions that would invade anyone’s privacy or are otherwise exempt are not released (RSA 91-A:5, X). The Attorney General’s memorandum gives the example that footage after an officer’s shot, showing the person’s suffering, would likely be withheld as an invasion of privacy. The body camera chapter applies to agencies that choose to equip officers with cameras; officers must, with listed exceptions, start recording on arrival at a call for service or when engaged in any law enforcement encounter or activity, and recordings are for law enforcement purposes only, with no editing, copying, sharing or distribution except as the chapter authorizes (RSA 105-D:2, I, V, XII, XIII). We found no provision giving a person who appears in body camera video a right to a copy. Electroshock weapon cameras are different: when an officer uses a recording device attached to a TASER or similar device, the person recorded must be told the recording exists and must be given a copy on request (RSA 570-A:2, II(l)). Retention: recordings must be destroyed no sooner than 30 days and no later than 180 days after recording, unless they capture an officer’s use of deadly force or deadly restraint, a firearm discharge (other than to destroy an animal), death or serious bodily injury, or an encounter about which a complaint is filed with the department within 30 days, or are kept as evidence in a civil or criminal case or an internal affairs or disciplinary investigation; those are kept at least 3 years (RSA 105-D:2, XVI). Litigation, a pending criminal case or a court or administrative order also requires the recording to be kept as long as legally required (XVII(a)). Cruiser dashcams: the wiretap law lets a uniformed officer record audio along with video of a routine stop on a way, after notifying the person unless that is not reasonable or practicable (RSA 570-A:2, II(j)), but we found no New Hampshire statute that governs release or retention of dashboard camera video (RSA 105-D:3 only funds body-worn and dashboard cameras), so dashcam video is a governmental record decided under the general exemptions, including invasion of privacy (RSA 91-A:5, IV) and the court-made law enforcement records test described below. Preservation: if a request is denied because the material is exempt, it must be preserved for 90 days or while a Right-to-Know lawsuit is pending (RSA 91-A:9). For a lawsuit over the crash, you may want to ask a lawyer about a subpoena.

When police can hold video back

Agency must prove a Murray ground

RSA 91-A has no written investigation exemption. The New Hampshire Supreme Court adopted the federal Freedom of Information Act standard, 5 U.S.C. §552(b)(7), for law enforcement records (Lodge v. Knowlton, 118 N.H. 574 (1978); Murray v. N.H. Division of State Police, 154 N.H. 579 (2006)), and the Attorney General’s March 2024 Right-to-Know memorandum describes the test: the agency must first show the records were compiled for law enforcement purposes, and may then withhold them under this test only if it proves disclosure would interfere with enforcement proceedings, deprive a person of a right to a fair trial or an impartial adjudication, constitute an unwarranted invasion of privacy, reveal a confidential source, reveal investigative techniques and procedures, or endanger the life or physical safety of any person; the memorandum notes that a statutory exemption may still apply where none of these does. The burden is on the agency, not on you. For the interference ground, proceedings must be pending or “reasonably anticipated,” which the court reads to include unresolved crimes where some regular effort continues to solve them, and the agency must at least fairly describe what it is withholding and why. The memorandum also says requests received while a criminal prosecution is pending should be reviewed with the case prosecutor before a substantive response. We found no statute or official guidance that sets a date when this protection ends; the interference ground depends on proceedings being pending or reasonably anticipated, while other grounds, such as invasion of privacy, do not depend on a pending case. 911 recordings: records of the state 911 system are not public records, but the caller or the subject of the call, or their legal representative, may get them for investigation in anticipation of litigation or for a civil case, on the Division of Emergency Services and Communications’ notarized DSDESC 10 form, and records that are the subject of a criminal investigation are released only after the criminal matter is concluded (RSA 106-H:14). The division keeps 911 recordings for 6 months (N.H. Admin. R. Saf-C 7006.04(g)).

Do traffic cameras in New Hampshire record?

Law limits recording; some exceptions

Neither the state nor any city or town may engage in “surveillance” on public ways, meaning using a camera or other device to determine the ownership of a vehicle or the identity of its occupants (RSA 236:130, I, II), and they may not obtain that information from private businesses or other governments either (RSA 236:131). The exception for Department of Transportation traffic cameras covers images that are viewed only at the department’s transportation management center in connection with a particular incident on a public way and are not recorded (RSA 236:130, III(c)). The statute does not stop the creation, transmission or recording of images that cannot, by enhancement, manipulation or otherwise, be used for surveillance (IV). Other exceptions that may leave a recording: cameras at listed state-owned park and ride facilities, retrievable from the transportation management center and kept no longer than 24 days, with retrieved copies kept up to 18 months (III(g)); Department of Transportation fleet dash cameras, kept no longer than 3 business days unless retrieved before then (III(h)); security cameras on the Piscataqua River, Sarah Mildred Long, Memorial and Little Bay bridges, for which the statute sets no retention period (III(f)); covered wooden bridge cameras, erased within 7 days unless needed to investigate damage to the bridge (III(i)); surveillance incidental to monitoring a building or other structure the state, city or town controls (III(d)); toll collection (III(e)); and case-by-case surveillance to investigate a particular violation, misdemeanor or felony (III(b)). So a state traffic camera recording that identifies the vehicles in a crash should not exist, but if the crash happened at or near a park and ride lot, one of those bridges or a government building, or involved a state DOT vehicle, ask the agency in writing at once. The same limits bind city and town cameras on public ways. Toll cameras: toll monitoring images are designed to record the vehicle and plate, not the occupants’ faces, and are confidential and not public records under RSA 91-A (RSA 236:31, V, VI(a)). We found no Department of Transportation or New England 511 page that states whether camera feeds are recorded or kept; the department’s Transportation Systems Management and Operations page says only that its CCTV cameras give traffic management center operators a clearer picture of traffic flow and weather on major roadways.

Red-light and speed cameras

No red-light or speed camera law found

We found no New Hampshire statute that authorizes red-light or speed camera tickets, and RSA 236:130 forbids the state, cities and towns from using cameras to determine a vehicle’s ownership or its occupants’ identity on public ways unless a statute specifically authorizes it or another listed exception applies; violating it is a violation for a natural person and a misdemeanor for any other person (RSA 236:130, II, III(a), V). School bus stop-arm cameras: since September 17, 2026 (2026, 175, HB 1537), a school bus operator may choose to mount a video recording device on the bus’s stop bar to record vehicles passing a stopped bus while it boards or discharges passengers; the video is used only to supplement the bus driver’s or operator’s observations and sworn statements, is kept until a prosecutor decides whether to bring charges and then until any case is resolved, is otherwise erased within 7 days, and, if an accident or injury involving the school bus is recorded, must be kept for no less than 4 years to be available under subpoena by either party in any resulting tort action (RSA 236:130, III(k)). Inside the bus: where a school board authorizes audio recording with interior video, the recording may not be kept longer than 10 school days unless the district finds it relevant to a disciplinary proceeding or a court orders a longer hold (RSA 570-A:2, II(k)), so ask the school district at once. From January 1, 2027 (2026, 163, HB 1308), the bus camera footage may be used as evidence to identify the vehicle owner or operator and shall be made available by subpoena, and the owner of a vehicle cited for a school bus violation will have access to the recording or a copy on request (RSA 265:54, I-a). License plate readers: police plate readers may not photograph occupants, and plate reads must be purged within 3 minutes unless they led to an arrest, citation, protective custody or a missing person or wanted hit (RSA 261:75-b, I, VIII), so they are not a source of crash video. The section was due to be repealed on January 1, 2027; 2026, chapter 88 (HB 1059, effective May 28, 2026) removed that repeal without changing its text.

If your request is denied

Superior court, or ombudsman if staffed

Court: anyone aggrieved by a violation of the Right-to-Know Law may petition the superior court for injunctive relief, with or without a lawyer; the court must give the case high priority, and a petition is sufficient if it states facts constituting a violation (RSA 91-A:7, I). If the court finds the lawsuit was necessary to enforce compliance or to address a purposeful violation, the agency must pay your reasonable attorney’s fees and costs, provided it knew or should have known its conduct violated the law; an official who violated the law in bad faith faces a civil penalty of $250 to $2,000 (RSA 91-A:8, I, IV). We found no statutory filing deadline for the petition, but the agency must preserve material it withheld as exempt only for 90 days or while your lawsuit is pending (RSA 91-A:9), and body camera video may be destroyed after 30 days, so act quickly. Ombudsman: instead of going to court you may file a signed, written complaint with the Right-to-Know Ombudsman with a $25 fee (waivable for inability to pay), attaching your request and the agency’s response; the agency gets 20 calendar days to answer, the ombudsman rules within 30 calendar days after the submissions, and either side may appeal to the superior court within 30 calendar days (RSA 91-A:7-b, 91-A:7-c). Filing with the ombudsman blocks a court petition until the ombudsman rules or the deadline passes, and going to court first rules out the ombudsman (RSA 91-A:7, III, IV). The Secretary of State’s ombudsman page carries a notice that the office moved to the Office of State and Public Sector Labor Relations on July 1, 2025, that the ombudsman position is vacant, that no action can be taken on filings until a new ombudsman is appointed, and that Right-to-Know cases may still be filed in superior court. Confirm the office is staffed (603-271-2446) before choosing that route.

What to do now

1. 1

   Send a written Right-to-Know request now

   Ask the responding department, sheriff or State Police (SPHeadquarters@dos.nh.gov) for body camera and cruiser video, with the date, time, place and any report number, and ask that it be preserved.

2. 2

   Expect an answer within 5 business days

   The agency must produce the records, deny in writing citing the exemption, or give a written time estimate and the reason for the delay.

3. 3

   Ask about a felony arrest or use of force

   Body camera video is public only if it shows a restraint or use of force, a firearm discharge or an encounter ending in a felony arrest, minus private portions.

4. 4

   Request the 911 recording within 6 months

   As the caller or the subject of the call, file the notarized DSDESC 10 form with the Division of Emergency Services and Communications; recordings are kept 6 months.

5. 5

   Post the crash on the bounty board

   Dashcam and business camera footage is not in any public agency’s files and is often overwritten within days.

Frequently asked questions