Nearly 100 surveillance cameras from the technology company Flock Safety watch major roads across Spokane County, capturing photos of every single vehicle that drives past and tracking the movements of everyday people. Spokane County is not alone: as many as 80 cities across Washington have these cameras.

Flock cameras are always on, recording license plates and other details of everyone who passes by all day, every day and those details go into a networked, searchable database. This omnipresence represents a quantum leap in the surveillance power available to governments of all sizes to track their citizens regardless of where they are.

We spent more than five months digging into the impacts of this network on our community in the Inland Northwest.

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Read the latest

Washington may regulate Flock in next legislative session

Amid a nationwide backlash over privacy concerns, state legislators are looking to clamp down on data retention for automated license plate reader cameras.

‘Alien.’ ‘Ice pick-up.’ ‘immigration violation.’

More than 1,000 immigration searches were made on Spokane County Flock cameras this year.

‘Operation Pimp Juice,’ ‘Serial Beer Thief,’ and Grand Theft Excavator

Some of the other weird sh*t local officers and agencies nationwide were searching for using Spokane County Flock cameras.

Did you go to a protest this year? Local cops might’ve been searching for you on Flock cameras.

Newly obtained records show that the Spokane County Sheriff’s Office made 24 searches across thousands of cameras for cars at protests.

‘Had an abortion, search for female.’ Texas deputy searched Spokane County Flock cameras

Amidst nationwide and state scrutiny of the cameras, Spokane County’s Flock network was used by an out-of-state cop looking for a woman who had an abortion.

Flock-enheit 451

COLUMN: Why Flock cameras have no place in a free society and what you can do about it

The State of Surveillance in Spokane

As officials prepare more Flock cameras to roll out across Spokane County, here’s what you need to know.

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Why we’re investigating Flock

Watching the watchmen

An editor’s note on a deeply-reported series on the Flock cameras tracking your movements.

Happy holidays! Here’s all our Flock data

Our gift to you: big ‘ol .csv files, a public records request guide and behind-the-scenes info from our investigative series on Flock cameras.

Podcasts on Flock

The POD: A FLOCK Deep Dive

Erin, Aaron, and Val talk about the months-long investigative reporting on FLOCK cameras.

The POD: All the FLOCK things

Erin and Val talk about Automated License Plate Readers, aka FLOCK cameras, in Spokane County and nationwide.

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