ALPR Cameras

Although currently paused, our Police Department has the ability to use ALPR (Automated License Plate Readers) technology to capture objective evidence without compromising on individual privacy.

ALPR technology has proven to be valuable in solving and preventing serious crimes. Retroactive searches allow officers to solve crimes after they've occurred; additionally, real time alerting of "hotlist" vehicles allow officers to capture wanted criminals. Please see links to our policies and the transparency portal at right.

In Renton, Flock cameras are only allowed on state highways, and data from the system can only be accessed for serious crimes such as violent crimes, felonies, or gross misdemeanors.

What Flock ALPR Technology Does

Flock ALPR cameras are a public safety tool that has shown to be an important asset in solving several investigations in Renton. They capture a snapshot (not a video) of license plate information and vehicle characteristics as cars pass by the fixed camera locations. The system helps officers:

• Identify vehicles connected to felony or gross misdemeanor investigations
• Locate missing persons or endangered individuals when a vehicle is involved
• Respond more quickly to in-progress crimes
• Provide investigative leads in cases where no suspect information is available
• Corroborate timelines or vehicle movements in major incidents

What Flock ALPR Technology Cannot Do

The system cannot:

• Track people — it only captures vehicles and license plates
• Be used for minor offenses — Renton PD may only access data for felonies and gross misdemeanors
• Be used for immigration enforcement — SB 6002 prohibits sharing ALPR data with federal immigration agencies
• Be used by out-of-state agencies — information stored in our records is not available to out-of-state or federal agencies
• Provide real-time surveillance of individuals — it is not a live video system
• Be used arbitrarily — all users must be trained and authorized under the updated policy

There is also a common question about stolen vehicles. While the system can generate alerts for stolen plates, officers must meet the legal threshold for accessing historical data under the new law.

What the Renton Police Department Updated

To comply with SB 6002 and strengthen community trust, the department implemented several key changes:

• Revised ALPR policy to reflect all new state requirements
• Enhanced data governance to ensure proper retention and access controls
• Improved audit procedures for both internal and public-facing systems
• Restricted access to only trained and authorized personnel. All authorized users have been retrained to align with the updated policy
• Mandatory documentation for every search
• Reinforced accountability measures to ensure compliance and transparency

Data Deletion - Is the data truly deleted after 21 days?
Yes. The deletion is enforced by Amazon Web Services (AWS), not by Flock. Our LPR data is stored in AWS and automatically deleted at the end of our retention window (21 days, per Washington state requirement).

• The deletion is executed by an AWS S3 lifecycle rule that runs continuously, with no manual step that anyone at Flock can skip, pause, or override.
• Every deletion is logged in AWS CloudTrail with a tamper-proof, cryptographically validated timestamp, and AWS CloudWatch shows the corresponding drop in stored data in real time.
• Once data expires, it cannot be recovered by anyone — including AWS engineers — by design.
• The underlying AWS environment is independently audited against the leading security and compliance frameworks relevant to public-sector data.

Data Security - is the a federal "backdoor"?
No. There is no federal backdoor. There is no API, no standing access, and no mechanism by which a federal agency can reach into our data on its own.

Our data is encrypted in transit and at rest, hosted in a secure AWS environment aligned to the standards relevant to public-sector data, and every search of our data is logged, tied to a specific named user, and reviewable through the audit tools in our account.

Specific to Washington (SB 6002) specific changes were made in the Flock platform

• All Washington agencies were removed from the National (nationwide) Lookup network, and we blocked re-entry. Washington agencies cannot be added back, intentionally or by mistake.
• Sharing with federal agencies has been revoked and blocked for all Washington agencies in the platform. New federal sharing relationships cannot be created, and Washington agencies are not visible to federal users.
• Automatic search filters block any attempt to query Washington data for immigration- or reproductive-care-related reasons. Blocked searches return no data.
• Automatic private-to-law-enforcement camera sharing has been disconnected, consistent with the warrant requirement in the law.
  

These are enforced by the platform, not just by policy, to conform to state law. We retain 100% ownership and control of our data. In order for other (in-state) agencies to view our data, we need to opt them in.