Four in ten forces confirmed they hold details of people reporting offences while the remainder either failed to response to the Freedom of Information request or said ti would require too much work.
West Midlands Police, the second largest force, holds 1.1 million records of people who have reported offences over the past 12 years.
Others, including Lancashire, Cleveland, Avon and Somerset, Gloucestershire, West Mercia and North Wales, hold more than 150,000 each.
Hertfordshire said it held 1.6 million records of all kinds generated since 1989 while Sussex said it held 5.6 million records gathered over seven years.
These records included details of millions of victims of crime as well as suspects and offenders.
Forces said personal information was spread across up to 22 databases and warned details of the same person could be recorded several times.
They said staff and officers were following guidance published by the National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA).
In some cases, police staff not only record names, addresses and contact details, but ask about the callers' date of birth and ethnicity.
They insisted gathering the data was necessary to fight crime, protect the vulnerable and ensure concerns were dealt with properly.
Ian Readhead, director of information at the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo), said forces should only record information relevant to the call.
But the retired Hampshire deputy chief constable admitted an "amicable exchange of information" could be used against callers in the future.
He said: "What is important is that data is retained in applications that are clearly transparent and subject to audit and that the Information Commissioner is content with the business processes.
"We must be transparent and reassure the public that the information is not being misused. The volume of information held by the police service can be vast and one of the things we must do is ensure compliance."
Gus Hosein, of Privacy International, said: "There's a point where the police stop seeing members of the public as the people to be protected and rather see them all as potential criminals.
"Until now, this only happened in non-democratic states, but I fear that this line has been crossed in ours."
Daniel Hamilton, of Big Brother Watch, said: "For the Police to log this kind of information isn't just wrong ? it's dangerous.
"The public must be confident that, when they report a crime, they do so in the comfort of anonymity and without risk of their details being stored on a central police database which can be accessed by thousands of people"
Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty said: "Of course crime reports should be recorded to pursue investigations but holding millions of records of innocents for decades on end is disproportionate to any legitimate policing goal.
"This data-hoarding risks alienating the public from law enforcement and wasting police time and resources on useless record management."
In November, Christopher Graham, the Information Commissioner, said Britain was heading towards becoming a surveillance state of unmanned spy drones, GPS tracking of employees and profiling through social networking sites.
The relentless march of surveillance had seen snooping techniques "intensify and expand" at such a pace that regulators were struggling to keep up, he said.
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