Which Washington cities still operate Flock Safety ALPRs and what contractual protections do they have?
Executive summary
Available reporting shows Flock Safety ALPRs remain widespread in Washington—an estimated network covering dozens of cities—yet many municipalities have paused or disabled systems after revelations about federal access; definitive, up-to-the-minute lists of which specific cities still operate Flock cameras are not published in the sources provided [1] [2] [3]. Contract documents and vendor statements promise local ownership and control of data and optional sharing settings, but public records and UWCHR research reveal at least eight Washington agencies enabled direct sharing with U.S. Border Patrol in 2025, exposing a gap between contractual claims and practice [4] [3].
1. How big the Flock footprint in Washington really is
Journalistic estimates and research portray a large, entrenched presence: The Urbanist reported that Flock expanded to an estimated 80 cities, six counties and three tribes in Washington in recent years, reflecting the company’s aggressive state-level growth [1]. The University of Washington Center for Human Rights’ investigation confirmed that many local ALPR networks exist across the state and that researchers used public-records methods to trace how that data was being accessed [3].
2. Which cities are documented to have paused or turned off systems
Several city-specific examples appear in the reporting: Lynnwood’s police department disabled system access and turned off cameras after the UWCHR report, Redmond suspended its program following council action and ICE arrests, and other agencies—including some sued for not releasing ALPR images—have either paused use or faced legal pressure to disclose data [5] [2]. The reporting does not provide a comprehensive, current roster of every city still operating cameras; it documents a mix of active use, suspension and legal disputes across jurisdictions [2] [5].
3. What the contracts and vendor statements say about protections
Flock’s public statements and contract language emphasize that customer agencies “own and control access to their data,” that the company does not enroll agencies in automatic data sharing, and that federal agencies were removed from certain lookup tools—assertions Flock reiterated in a company response to the UWCHR report [4]. Stateline quoted a Flock spokesperson saying the company has no contractual relationship with ICE and that many liberal or sanctuary cities continue to sign contracts [6]. Broadly, vendor promises include customer control, configurable sharing settings, and retention policies, but exact contractual terms vary by agency and are not fully disclosed in the material reviewed [4] [6].
4. Where promises met practice — and where they didn’t
Documentary reporting complicates Flock’s assurances: UWCHR records obtained by public records requests found that at least eight Washington law enforcement agencies enabled direct, 1:1 sharing of their Flock networks with U.S. Border Patrol during 2025, a practice that contradicts the vendor’s public framing about non-automatic sharing and raises questions about how local contracts and permissions were configured in practice [3]. That same reporting helped catalyze local shutdowns and legislative proposals—lawmakers are now pushing bills to limit immigration-enforcement access, shorten retention windows, and exempt ALPR data from routine public-records release except for bona fide research [1] [7].
5. Legal and policy protections in play — and gaps that remain
State-level policy work and proposed legislation aim to impose concrete contractual and statutory limits—examples include Senate bills that would ban immigration-enforcement access and require rapid deletion of most ALPR data, countering the current patchwork of local policies and vendor contracts [7] [1]. Advocacy groups like ACLU-WA and UWCHR have called for a Driver Privacy Act-style statute to lock in those protections; meanwhile, courts have forced disclosure in some cases, as in the Skagit ruling referenced by state lawmakers, further complicating confidentiality claims [1] [8].
6. Bottom line: partial answers and remaining unknowns
Reporting documents both a large installed base of Flock ALPRs in Washington and specific municipalities that have paused or disabled systems, but it does not supply a complete, current list of which cities are actively operating cameras today; similarly, vendor contracts publicly promise local control and configurable sharing while UWCHR’s public-records work shows instances of direct federal access, indicating contractual protections can be sidestepped or configured in ways that permit federal searches [1] [3] [4]. The picture is one of widespread deployment, spotty transparency about contract terms, and active policy fights to codify stronger, statewide contractual and statutory protections [1] [7] [3].