Full transcript
through without injury.
Reporting in Seattle Lauren
Donovan, Fox 13 news
Lynnwood might be the next
city to cut ties with Flock
Safety in its camera
systems. The city council
has scheduled a vote to
potentially terminate its
contract with a license
plate reader company. This
comes as several cities are
suspending or deactivating
the program because of
privacy concerns and data
access by federal
immigration agents. Fox
Thirteen’s Frankie Thompson
has a closer look inside
the City Council meeting.
Not even one year since the
launch of 25 flock safety
cameras in Lynnwood, and
already several city
leaders want them out. I
don’t like it. I’ve never
liked it. I don’t trust
flock, period. Flock safety
is an American manufacturer
and operator of automated
license plate recognition,
video surveillance, and
gunfire locator systems.
Lynnwood Police Department
started using the system in
June 2025. Chief Cole
Langdon says the cameras
were installed primarily in
the city’s commercial and
high traffic areas, but he
says the department soon
learned outside agencies
had broader access than
intended to the data their
cameras were collecting. So
he pressed pause on the
entire operation. Once we
became aware, we stopped,
we did a full pause on it.
And that wasn’t that wasn’t
directed by the mayor, that
wasn’t directed by council.
That was a decision I made
internally. Once we did our
audit and I realized that
we had a I had no real way
to determine the legitimacy
of these other searches.
The chief says two of those
other searches were labeled
in the data system as Ice
accessed by law enforcement
in Florida and Pennsylvania.
Some city council members
say this points to the
community’s growing fear
that federal agents are
using the flock cameras for
immigration enforcement. I
also believe that the harms,
the broken promises and the
loss of public trust that
this company and product
has done outweighs the
benefits at this moment in
time. Flock safety says
it’s proud of its
partnership with Lynnwood
police, saying in a
statement in part flock LPR
system does not track
people and does not collect
confidential personal
information such as names,
phone numbers or home
addresses. But some council
members say that doesn’t
renew their trust in the
company. My concern is what
the Flock Network is
capable of, and I’m
concerned that I don’t
think state law will really
hold up potentially to what
this surveillance network
could be used for on a
national scale. Washington
state lawmakers are
currently discussing Senate
Bill 6002 to regulate the
cameras, like who has
access to them and deleting
data after 21 days. I’m not
happy with this legislation,
and I think if it were to
pass, I would be open to
the city making our own
guardrails to make it even
stronger should we want to