Washington lawmakers are moving to regulate license-plate reader cameras that privacy advocates and open-records critics say could be used to stalk or track people. The proposal, introduced as the 2026 legislative session begins in Olympia, would limit what data from the cameras can be obtained through public-records requests, according to the Associated Press.
Spokane County Sheriff John Nowels, who said the automatic license-plate reader cameras have been “revolutionary” for his department, described how the technology speeds up investigations. He said replicating the cameras’ capabilities with people would be unworkable, saying, “To replicate this with humans, I would have to have 70 people standing on the street 24/7 and they’d have to have perfect recall for everything they took a picture of for 30 days,” Nowels said. He also said he is reluctant to discuss potential vulnerabilities, warning that publicizing weaknesses could give people harmful ideas.
The regulation debate gained urgency after courts in Washington treated camera images as public records. The article said a Skagit County judge ruled in November that nearly every image captured by these cameras in Washington is a public record available to anyone who requests it. Nowels said the access could be misused, describing a scenario in which a violent ex-boyfriend could request records tied to the ex’s license plate to find where she lives.
Nowels’ concerns arrive amid broader skepticism toward the camera supplier, Flock Safety. The article said Flock markets its systems to law enforcement and claims they are used by more than 5,000 agencies, with capabilities that go beyond recording license plates. That kind of detailed information is a focus for privacy advocates, and the AP report said several Washington cities shut down Flock camera programs in part because of public-record access concerns and because of earlier scrutiny of the company’s role in the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement.
Washington does not yet have a comprehensive statewide regulatory framework, the article said. As a result, legislators are considering a bill designed to narrow both where the cameras can operate and how records requests can be handled. Under the proposal described by AP, the cameras would be banned outside of hospitals, schools, food banks and churches, and they could not be used for immigration enforcement or to track protests.
A central element of the bill would also restrict public access to underlying data. The article said the proposal would allow only academic researchers to make public records requests for the camera data. Sen. Yasmin Trudeau, D-Tacoma, a co-sponsor, said negotiations will likely be contentious, saying, “That’s going to remain probably one of the contentious points of the bill and negotiations moving forward,” and “There are people that feel very passionately about public records, and they should.”
Records disclosures had already shown how the cameras were used and how requests could generate large amounts of data. The AP report said independent journalists at 404 Media, in May, reported that records requests uncovered police across the country conducting Flock searches on behalf of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The article also said audit trails tied to searches revealed nationwide camera checks by Texas deputies while they were trying to locate a woman.
The report said Spokane County responded by stopping nationwide access to its Flock network after those disclosures. It also described a University of Washington research project that used its own records requests to show at least eight Washington agencies had given U.S. Border Patrol access to Flock images, and noted that Washington law generally forbids local law enforcement from assisting federal immigration enforcement.
Court rulings have driven additional changes in local agencies, the article said. By the time a Washington superior court ruled in November that camera data was open to the public, the Seattle suburb of Redmond had already shut down its Flock cameras, the AP report said. It also described how some cities faced waves of records requests, including broad requests that would require preserving large photo archives and targeted requests for specific plates.
Some requests reflected fears about surveillance reaching beyond public safety. The AP report said Spokane activist Jim Leighty requested “camera locations, dates and times” for a specific license plate during the first dozen days of December, seeking information about a vehicle he believed was used to transport ICE detainees between Spokane and a holding facility in Tacoma. It said Leighty later described receiving a single camera hit after less than a month, and said the county notified a transport company and called him to ensure he was not trying to harm anyone.
Others, the article said, framed privacy differently. Thomas Stotts, who runs Strategic Intelligence Services, made records requests to locate a parent who fled another state with their children. Stotts said, “As soon as you walk out the door, you have no expectation of privacy.” The report said Spokane County Sheriff John Nowels criticized the use of that kind of information by private investigators, arguing they do not have the same accountability or training as law enforcement, and said, “I don’t know anything about their integrity.”
In response to concerns about abuse, Spokane County’s public records office said it has tried to manage requests under existing law. Tony Dinaro, the county’s public records officer, told AP that the county attempted to prevent known abusers from looking up specific license plates by cross-referencing records requests with a list of people who have protective orders. Dinaro said the county attorneys felt they were “definitely on solid ground legally” to deny an abuser’s request and called the approach “our red line.”
Dinaro also said anonymously submitted requests pose a challenge, because a stalker could avoid leaving a name. He said the county plans to contact the vehicle owner tracked in a request, giving the owner a chance to go to court to prevent release, if they say they are being stalked.
Beyond access restrictions, the bill described by AP would address another practical problem: Flock deletes images after 30 days unless they are preserved. The article said the bill would slash the amount of time most images could be preserved from 30 days to three. Nowels warned that the limits could leave the cameras “completely useless,” according to the report.
Civil liberties advocates and open-government groups said the bill’s tradeoffs are complicated. Collette Weeks, executive director of the Washington Coalition for Open Government, said the bill “raises 100 questions for me,” and questioned how transparency should be defined if agencies keep their own logs but the underlying data is limited. Tee Sannon, technology policy program director with the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington, said, “It’s really just a question of balancing transparency with privacy.”
The AP report also described ACLU concerns that audit-log information may be vague. It said ACLU warnings were based on records obtained through Range Media, describing more than a dozen Flock searches by Spokane County sheriff’s deputies in November with an “investigation” explanation logged.
As the legislature takes up the proposal, the report said local use is already changing. It said Olympia shut off its Flock cameras at the police department’s request last month, and Nowels said he supports removing the tool if it cannot be used lawfully and appropriately, saying, “If you can’t use this tool appropriately and ethically and lawfully, it needs to go away,” and “It just does.”