Across the US, state and local governments are restricting how police can use automated license plate readers (ALPRs). These cameras, such as the Flock cameras leased by the Spokane County Sheriff’s Office (SCSO), photograph every license plate that passes them and feed the data into a national network searchable by a vast number of law enforcement agencies.
The Colorado legislature has proposed a bill that would require police to obtain a warrant before they seek historical data from the cameras. The city of Denver amended its contract with Flock, the largest manufacturer of the cameras, to keep ALPR data from being shared with the federal government. Sixteen states have laws on the books restricting how police departments can use them.
Here in Washington, Skamania County and the cities of Olympia, Redmond and Lynnwood recently turned off their cameras, at least temporarily. They made the changes after the University of Washington’s Center for Human Rights published a report exposing weaknesses in the security of Flock cameras and a county court ruled data collected by ALPRs is public record.
Spokane County has not committed to any regulations, but the Washington legislature is working with the state chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) to impose its own restrictions in a bill the nonprofit calls the “Driver Privacy Act.”
“We’re not trailblazing at this point,” said state Sen. Marcus Riccelli (D-Spokane). “We’re catching up.”
Police agencies say Flock cameras help investigators collaborate across agencies to solve crimes. But the cameras have in many cases been used by federal and local law enforcement across the country to search for immigrants in sanctuary states, surveil protesters and at least once to track a Texas woman who had an abortion.
What is Flock and who else has access to these cameras?
Flock is a surveillance technology brand that sells a specific brand of Automated License Plate Reader (ALPR) that are used on a subscription basis by law enforcement agencies across the state.
The cameras constantly log photos of any car that drives past them, whether that driver has potentially committed a crime or not, which is then stored for up to 30 days in a database owned by the law enforcement agencies. That database can then be searched by whoever has a direct log-in to it, or any agencies that it has been shared with. Read more about Flock cameras in our region and where they’re located here.
The Spokane Sheriff’s network currently has more than 60 Flock cameras operational within the county, including mobile Flock cameras mounted on vehicles that move around the area.
“This information ends up being really sensitive because it can be used to track people, but also to infer activities — what they’re doing, where they’re visiting, that sort of thing,” said Tee Sannon, technology policy program director at the ACLU. “That information then becomes ripe for misuse. We’re particularly concerned about the misuse of this data to harm vulnerable groups.”
Washington currently does not restrict the technology at all, and federal agents have used the cameras to try and find immigrants, which is a way around Washington’s sanctuary law.
The ACLU hopes the legislation will enshrine strong limitations on the use of Flock cameras, according to a summary of its proposals obtained by RANGE:
- Limit the “types of public agencies that can operate ALPRs in Washington to law enforcement, parking enforcement, tolling, and transportation agencies.”
- Ban agencies “from using ALPRs for immigration investigations and enforcement, and from collecting data around sensitive locations such as facilities that offer protected health care services.”
- Ban agencies from using Flock cameras to surveil protesters. (In the first half of this year, various outside law enforcement used Spokane County cameras to search for vehicles at protests.)
- Limit the amount of time police can keep data on vehicles that are not flagged as being connected to crimes to three minutes.
- Requires agencies to report to an oversight authority how it is using the ALPR data. (That oversight authority has not been identified, Sannon said.)
Right now, there is very little oversight for the cameras or the data they collect. Spokane County Sheriff John Nowels told RANGE earlier this month that SCSO regularly audits the searches and then told KXLY that they audit once per month. However, RANGE found thousands of searches that appear to violate SCSO policy in data collected during the first half of the year. It’s unclear what the department does with its audits, but Nowels said no one has ever been disciplined for such violations.
Law enforcement jurisdictions across Eastern Washington, including SCSO, Liberty Lake, Cheney, Airway Heights and Spokane Valley all lease Flock cameras.
Sannon said the ACLU is working with Senator Yasmin Trudeau (D-Tacoma) and Representative Osman Salahuddin (D-Redmond) to write and introduce the legislation in their respective chambers.
But it’s likely the bill won’t include the ACLU’s full wish list. The Washington State Standard reported Trudeau’s proposed legislation may limit retention to three days, rather than three minutes. Sannon, on the other hand, argues that the “gold standard” for a time limitation is a law in the state of New Hampshire, which requires police departments to delete data three minutes after it’s collected unless it flags a vehicle that’s connected to a crime.
Trudeau is working with stakeholders including the ACLU and police lobbies from across the state to triangulate a bill that would represent everyone’s best interests.
The ACLU’s summary of the proposal worries that without oversight and regulation, police agencies could use the data to violate people’s rights, even if they are not accused of a crime.
“The overwhelming majority of people whose data is captured by ALPRs are not suspected of a crime, and yet information about their whereabouts is stored and searchable in a massive database that allows agencies to reconstruct people’s daily routines and activities,” the nonprofit wrote.
Local response
Spokane County Sheriff’s spokesperson Mark Gregory and the Sheriff’s department did not return a request for comment on the draft Washington legislation, but Sheriff John Nowels told KXLY this week, “If we lose [the cameras], our communities will be less safe, and our cops will be able to do less work than we’re able to do today.”
RANGE reached out to each member of the Spokane County Board of Commissioners (BOCC) to ask whether the county was considering its own action on Flock cameras, but none responded as of press time. We also contacted Pat Bell, the spokesperson for the BOCC, who said he would check, but we have not heard back by press time. We will update this story if he responds.
Senator Riccelli said he recently spoke with Nowels about the legislation, and suggested that during their conversation, the sheriff reiterated his comments to KXLY. Riccelli’s impression of the county’s stance was that “they think [ALPRs are] a very helpful tool for law enforcement.” He said they were also concerned with the county court ruling that requires them to keep photographs generated by the ALPRs as public record.
“I think that they have huge concerns with the cost,” Riccelli said.
Though Riccelli could not comment on any specific regulatory proposal, he said something has to be done about the vast network that Flock has enabled.
“Let me be clear, backdoor communications with ICE are not okay,” Riccelli told RANGE. “It sounds like that’s been shut off [in Spokane County], but I think it needs to be explicit that without permission these cameras should be used for their intended use only.”
Representative Timm Ormsby, a Spokane Democrat, echoed Riccelli’s thoughts.
“We’re very concerned, as a principal, about unfettered data sharing, sharing of sensitive information,” Ormsby said. “So it would matter what guardrails and guidelines agencies that are sharing that data have and what they’re using for criteria.”
He told RANGE the surveillance cameras have caught lawmakers’ attention since they started becoming popular with police departments starting in 2021.
“This is something that several work groups and interested members have engaged in because of the experience we’ve seen in the past about abuses, particularly related to federal immigration issues,” Ormsby said.
