Full transcript
You're listening to Soundside. I'm Libby
Dankman. A big controversy is gripping
many Washington towns right now.
Automated license plate readers. Flock
Safety, a technology and surveillance
company, operates cameras in cities and
counties across the nation. Those
license plate readers take pictures of
vehicles and their license plates.
Pictures that can be used by police to
solve crimes. But questions about who
has access to the cameras is leading
several jurisdictions in Washington to
turn off their automated license plate
readers. In recent weeks, Lynwood,
Redmond, and Schammania County have all
disconnected flock cameras. Soundside
producer Hans Anderson spoke with people
behind this issue about the cameras, and
he's here with me now to talk about it.
Hi, Hans.
Hey, Libby.
So, let's just get the basics out of the
way. What are these automated license
plate readers?
Yeah, these are cameras on public
roadways. The cameras are solar powered
and they take photos of cars and their
license plates as they're passing by.
So, law enforcement agencies and Flock
say they are valuable tools to solve
crimes or identify cars in something
like an Amber Alert for missing
children. Now, according to Flock, more
than 6,000 communities in the US use its
cameras. If cities opt into it, this
data can be accessed by other police
departments across the country. Now,
privacy advocates are concerned about
the amount of footage generated by Flock
Safety's network and who has access to
that info. Flock is, you know, as I
said, the largest supplier of these
cameras in the United States and the
license plate readers are taking a
handful of photos of every car that
passes by.
So, that's a lot of images.
Some Washington jurisdictions have been
disconnecting their cameras, and there
are two main reasons for this. The first
is this court case in Scadget County.
Now, a judge issued a very important
ruling on Flock Images earlier this
month. Let's get to that first, Hans,
and then we're going to get to some
other concerns related to federal
immigration enforcement. First, the
public records issue. What happened?
Yeah. So, as you said, you know, this
has to do with the Washington Public
Records Act. And this whole story starts
with Jose Rodriguez, who filed a request
for images generated by flock cameras in
a lot of cities, but the two we're going
to talk about are Stanwood and Cedro
Woolly. That was in April of this year
when he filed those requests. Uh
Rodriguez is a tattoo artist who works
in Walaw Wala and he told 404 media that
he made the requests to see if the
images generated by flock cameras are in
fact public record. He wanted to raise
awareness that these images could
potentially be accessed by, in his
words, you know, stalkers or burglars.
You know, some cities complied. They
turned over those images, but Cedro
Woolly and Stanwood denied Rodriguez's
request for flock camera footage. The
town said flock cameras weren't public
record. So earlier this month, a judge
at Scadget County Superior Court sided
with Rodriguez and against the towns.
Now cities are turning off their
cameras. Lynwood was one of those
cities. They said, quote, "Out of
respect for the concerns raised and our
commitment to transparency. We have
chosen to pause the system while we
strengthen safeguards to ensure the
technology is used responsibly and
lawfully." So, you know, basically
departments are concerned that anyone
could file a public records request for
these images. And even just setting
aside those privacy concerns, that opens
them up to potential logistical
problems, too.
Right. So, I mean, the first thing that
comes to my mind is that somebody with
creepy aims wanting to follow their
ex-wife or something could be accessing
these images through the public records
system. But also, if there is a way to
request thousands, if not hundreds of
thousands of these automated license
plate reader images from cities through
the public records law, that is going to
take a lot of resources for cities to
comply with.
Yeah, for sure. And that's what I heard
when I spoke with Flock Safety's chief
legal officer, Dan Haley. He said the
company is concerned that this ruling
will lead to essentially nuisance
requests. These requests are coming in
in a deliberate effort to create
administrative burden for people who
would otherwise be going about the
business of law enforcement. Um, and
also to create costs and in some cases
to extort settlements from these cities
and towns to the tune of tens of
thousands of dollars.
And Hilly also said that Flock plans to
work with law enforcement for a, you
know, in his words legislative fix for
this issue. Okay, so the public records
angle again due to the Scadget County
judge's ruling earlier this month is one
arm of this story, Hans, but there is
this other major reason why flock
license plate readers are under scrutiny
in cities across the state, right? And
this has to do with the federal
government's ramped up efforts to arrest
and deport undocumented immigrants. Um,
what's going on with that side of the
story?
Yeah, and I think a really good example
of this story is in Redmond. For a
couple weeks now, the city council has
been discussing this. Here's council
member Melissa Stewart at a November
12th meeting when council voted to
formally pause flock cameras.
From my perspective, the vendor has not
proven trustworthy in other uh areas
around the country um and does not have
the the trust of our community, which is
something that I heard so loud and
clear. So, a little bit more scrutiny is
needed here. Redmond turned off its
cameras before the Scadget County case
and that was because of concerns that
the cameras could be accessed by federal
immigration officials.
So ICE or CPB might use the cameras for
immigration enforcement. That's what
she's saying. Is there any evidence that
this has actually happened? Hans,
yes, in Washington, but not in Redmond.
So the University of Washington Center
for Human Rights released a report in
October about Border Patrol accessing
flock data from Washington police
departments. Phil Nef, a research
coordinator at the Center for Human
Rights, told me the report was based on
public records requests for logs and
audits of flock systems in Washington.
From those documents, Nef's team could
see which departments were searching
flock networks and the rationale that
departments gave for those searches.
Now, the system isn't perfect. The
Center for Human Rights initially
flagged some searches between
departments as Border Patrol searches
based on the rationale the departments
listed. You know, for instance, a
department might say BP in the
rationale. Now, cities have said that
could be Belleview police searching
this, not Border Patrol. So, the authors
of the report have since walk back some
of those instances. However, in those
records, Nef did find that Border Patrol
had accessed flock networks in
Washington. But the process that the
University of Washington report relied
on doesn't provide enough info to know
whether these lookups were used for
deportation proceedings. That's really
hard to verify. Unfortunately, we know
from a multitude of recent reports as
well as, you know, documented documents
and court cases that ICE is really
interested in using driver's license and
license plate information to uh target
and identify people. But it's it's
really hard to draw the dots from uh the
kinds of searches we saw in Washington
state to specific enforcement a actions.
Now again, Redmond was not identified in
this report as a city whose flock
network was accessed by federal
immigration authorities,
but the city council it sounds like, has
been concerned enough that those cameras
are off in Redmond now and um they join
a lot of other cities again for various
reasons turning off the flock cameras.
So, law enforcement
is trying to use these images to solve
crimes, as we said, Amber Alerts, things
like that. What do they say about this
controversy?
Yeah, I spoke with Redmond Police Chief
Daryl Low. He says the license plate
readers are a useful tool for his
department and these security issues can
be managed.
We were not listed in that report
because of the safeguards that I put in
place uh around um our system. We never
shared our data um uh with outofstate uh
agencies. When we conducted an audit, we
did find that we had uh mistakenly uh
allowed two outofstate agencies uh uh
access to our system, albeit
temporarily, and we immediately turned
that access off and I shared that
information with the mayor and the city
council because transparency is at the
heart of the public safety technology
programs that I've put in place for the
city of Redmond. But council members
were still concerned about this enough
to disable the cameras. They voted this
week to study potentially ending the
city's contract with Flock. Hans, we do
have this law in Washington state. It is
the topic of a lot of conversation these
days. Keep Washington working act. It
says that law enforcement agencies are
generally not supposed to work with
federal immigration enforcement. There
are some carveouts involving um state
prison. So, how did federal agencies in
these cases access license plate
readers?
Yeah, I spoke to Phil Nef at the
University of Washington about this and
he told me that the Keep Washington
Working Act doesn't explicitly cover
information sharing like what he saw in
his report unless an agency was
knowingly targeting someone for civil
immigration enforcement with these
cameras. So, it's kind of a gray area.
But back to that University of
Washington report, you know, eight
police departments in Washington enabled
one-to-one sharing with these agencies.
Uh, for example, Kent was one of those
cities. And since this report came out,
it has since turned that sharing setting
off. Nef also outlined another way that
federal agencies access this data. He
called it backdoor access. There are
hundreds, if not thousands of these
searches by US Border Patrol of of
networks in Washington state during uh
the summer of 2025,
including um agencies that had not opted
into one-on-one sharing with US Border
Patrol. Um, and the best explanation we
have for that is that what happened is
Flock added Border Patrol to its list of
users that had access to networks via a
a setting that they call nationwide
lookup, which is a single checkbox in
the settings of the system that lets any
other user that's opted into nationwide
lookup to access your network. So Flock
did acknowledge that Border Patrol was
included in Nationwide Lookup as part of
a pilot program. That was their term for
it. It has since ended the program.
Also, Flock maintains that agencies
still had the ability to deny requests
during the period that Border Patrol had
access to nationwide lookup and that
every agency has absolute control over
its data sharing. boy. But when I think
about new systems, new user interfaces,
new programs to learn at work and the
kind of stakes that we're talking about
here, so making sure that the one check
box is not checked to opt in to the
nationwide lookup system. Um, this is,
you know, really high stakes for some
very complicated stuff and I could see
agencies having a difficult time
navigating it. Hans Flock and some
police departments are saying though
that it is possible to use these best
practices to safeguard the data. We
heard that from the Redmond police
chief. How does that sit with critics?
Yeah, not particularly well. I mean, if
you look at this report, there were some
sort of mistakes or violations that
happened. You know, it's still humans
navigating this system. Nef, you know,
that researcher at the University of
Washington is still curious why certain
agencies say they didn't know that they
were involved in onetoone sharing with
federal agencies. It was also concerning
that a number of agencies after we
shared the report um said, "We didn't
realize we had one-on-one sharing with
Border Patrol activated and we don't
know how that happened." And you know,
there's still a lot up in the air here.
So, as Redmond City Council is looking
into what it would take to end its
contract with Flock, there are questions
about implications for grant money the
city received to set up the program. You
know, privacy advocates are lauding the
judge's ruling in Scadget County.
There's a potential push from Flock to
change the Washington Public Records Act
in the legislature this year. This story
is not over.
This story again has many elements and
we will be following it as it unfolds
here in Washington State. Hans Anderson,
producer here on Soundside. Really
appreciate your reporting.
Thank you.
So, we've talked about the legal fights
over proper usage and access of flock
camera footage, but for a lot of people,
this is a couple steps into a process
they might not even know is happening. I
mean, are you aware where the nearest
license plate reader is to you? I'm not.
Privacy advocates have been sounding the
alarm on surveillance and data
collection like this for years as the
technology has become more ubiquitous
nationwide. For more on Flock cameras
and the wider issues they present, I
spoke with Barl Lipton. She's a senior
investigative researcher for the
Electronic Frontier Foundation, which is
an organization that advocates for
privacy rights. She says there's a lot
that can be gleaned from snapshots of
vehicles like what Flock captures. That
information
captures a lot of detail about a
person's life. It captures the time and
the location of their vehicle. It
captures information about that vehicle
type and it makes it all searchable. So,
individuals with access to this data
sharing network can search for
particular license plates, but they can
also do things like search for all red
vehicles within a particular area as
long as they have access to the images
being stored and captured by other
jurisdictions. And in a lot of cases in
the law enforcement space, there is wide
data sharing going on. We hear a lot
about license plate readers being used
for things like finding missing vehicles
or, you know, tracking other individuals
who might be associated with crimes. But
it's important to remember that these
pieces of equipment are capturing
information on
mostly law-abiding citizens going about
their daily activities.
these automated cameras have come under
a lot of scrutiny from your organization
I mean and also from academics. Uh we
talked about how the University of
Washington uh discovered that there were
these accesses by the federal government
but there is information being created
about us all the time. You know we we
have cell phones in our hands that you
know people can access if they get a
warrant. Um our movements are tracked.
There are cameras in cities from traffic
cameras to body cameras on police
officers. There are law enforcement
cameras set up around the city of
Seattle now in what the police
department argues are crime hotspots. Um
there are doorbell cameras in private
homes. You know, people are capturing
data of us all the time. And these law
enforcement agencies argue that when
you're on a public street, you don't
have any expectation of privacy. When so
much of our movements are already being
tracked and again, the the agencies
argue that we're in public anyway, we
shouldn't expect to be hidden from view.
Why is it important to look more closely
at these cameras, do you think? I think
this is a situation where a lot of the
technology has outpaced the regulation
and the government's understanding and
our relationship with the government
about how they can or should respect our
privacy. While there is an expectation
that somebody might see you on the
street, you don't necessarily expect
that person is going to be able to, for
example, retroactively
pull up all of the places that you have
been on the street in the last day,
week, month, years. So the
ephemererality of our experience in
public is being eroded by the way that
this information is captured and stored
and made searchable. There's also a lack
of oversight and auditing associated
with how people are able to do some of
those searches. Just because I go
outside and my mailman sees me on the
street doesn't mean that a police
officer on the other side of the country
should be able to look up my license
plate and see everywhere that I drove on
a particular day. So, I think that these
are very different things. I think
people should still have some right to
privacy even though as a society we've
moved into a a place where we are living
leaving leaving a lot of digital crumbs
in our wake and I think when it comes to
the government and to the application of
the law we see important differences
across jurisdictions and different
values in communities across the country
and it's not fair or right that for
example law enforcement in another state
should be able to conduct investigations
on people in our state
because they have access to this type of
data that facilitates their ability to
track people across state lines.
What about the investigative benefits?
So when we talked to Redmond Police
Chief Daryl Lowe, that police department
had been using flock cameras, but the
city council recently turned them off.
Low said that these have had tangible
benefits when it comes to solving crimes
or responding to like an Amber Alert
when uh a child has been abducted. Are
you discounting the benefits of the
system maybe for communities who want to
see crime stopped?
I think communities should be left to
decide what is important to them.
However, the way that we've seen in
practice these technologies roll out, it
has been without at times having clear
policies around the use, without having
clear mechanisms for how abuse of the
systems will be disciplined, without a
clear understanding of how the
technology actually works and the extent
to which information is being stored.
There has not been appropriate
consideration for issues like compliance
with the public records laws or with
figuring out how that data is deleted or
kept siloed and not copied. Um, I think
there are still so many issues with the
implementation that communities need to
consider because public safety is
obviously important. But to be able to
say that public safety needs to take
precedent over all of these other
important considerations and
appropriate thoughtful implementation
means that some communities are being
put in a more dangerous position than
they started in.
And you're referencing like an immigrant
community for example.
It could be um an immigrant community
depending on how you know we've seen
situations and there's been a lot of
reporting about how even within a police
department law enforcement officers will
access some of this information for
their own purposes. You know to harass
an exartner or to find the location of
somebody that they had a negative
interaction with. There are lots of
reasons why people should continue to
have privacy, why their day-to-day
movements, even if those movements are
totally legal and above board and maybe
not even that interesting, are nobody
else's business. In the wrong hands,
this is the kind of information that
depending on differences in law or
values or,
you know, whatever it might be, could
really be used against somebody. That is
a concern that city attorneys who have
looked at this in several local
jurisdictions around Washington have
have raised this idea that the
information could be accessed by
somebody who wanted to harass or stalk
uh and a former partner or things like
that. Um Barl Lipton, senior
investigative researcher at the
Electronic Frontier Foundation. Any any
final thoughts here about how this
conversation about privacy versus the
utility for law enforcement is going
nationwide.
I've been really heartened to see that a
lot of communities are really engaging
with some of these questions. Any
individual is not expected to be an
expert on any one of these developing
technologies and these technologies are
developing all of the time. the device
that you get today is not necessarily
going to be running the same software
that it was last month or will be
running a month from now. So, I think
it's very important that people continue
to ask questions and continue to expect
from their local representatives that
those questions are going to be taken
seriously and
proper steps will be taken to thoroughly
protect our civil liberties and our
rights going forward.
Thank you, Barl. I really appreciate
your time today.
Thank you for having me.
And obviously, the issue of lock cameras
is a live one here in cities all over
Washington. If you have thoughts on this
story or questions about the cameras or
how cities are handling this, email us
at soundsidek.org
or leave me a voicemail 2062213213.
2062213213.
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