The law bars the federal government and agencies outside of Washington from accessing data generated by the cameras that are owned by public agencies in the state.
Under the new law, public agencies in Washington cannot place the cameras in “sensitive” areas, including near health care facilities, courts and facilities where immigration matters are conducted.
Before signing the bill at an Olympia news conference, Ferguson said Senate Bill 6002 “strikes a balance” between helping law enforcement respond to public safety issues while protecting sensitive information those cameras generate — specifically from federal immigration authorities.
We’re living in a challenging time on a range of issues, but I think it’s fair to say at the top of those challenging issues is what’s going on with (the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement),” Ferguson said, as he also signed House Bill 2105 that requires employers to notify workers of impending immigration enforcement action. “That does not mean we are helpless in the face of that, (and) we can work together collectively to do everything that is in our power to stand up for communities all across our state.”
Washington joins about two dozen states that have regulations around automated license plate readers.
But some privacy and civil rights advocates have said the new safeguards do not go far enough to protect people from the harms of mass surveillance and make people more vulnerable to unnecessary traffic stops.
“We’ve been raising these concerns around automated license plate readers for a long time, and these harms aren’t hypothetical. They are taking place,” Tee Sannon, technology policy program director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington, said Friday. “(The new law) needs to be the start of the conversation — it can’t be the end.”
And it’s still unclear if the new law will prompt changes in any cities that had turned off their license plate-reading cameras over the last year.
Jurisdictions across Washington including Skamania County and the cities of Everett, Redmond, Olympia and Lynnwood temporarily or permanently shut down their cameras as public scrutiny swelled over the controversial surveillance technology.
How the bill came together
The license plate-reading devices take pictures of any passing vehicles, logging detailed information about each vehicle into a searchable database. Users receive an alert any time a license plate number is detected that is associated with a stolen car, a missing person or an outstanding warrant.
But a University of Washington report in October found federal immigration enforcement agencies had searched the Flock Safety camera databases of at least 18 police agencies in the state, often without their knowledge.
Sen. Yasmin Trudeau, a Tacoma Democrat, introduced the bill in January in response to the onslaught of concerns about privacy, safety and potential use of footage for federal immigration enforcement.
Trudeau's bill went through several significant changes, some of which trouble privacy advocates like Sannon. The amended law, for instance, allows public agencies to retain their data for 21 days, shorter than the 30-day period used by Flock Safety but much longer than the 72-hour period originally proposed.
The longer the data is stored, the more vulnerable it is to “bad actors” using it in ways it’s not intended, Sannon said. She pointed to Texas authorities in May searching databases in Washington while looking for a woman they said had self-administered an abortion — health care that is legal in Washington but not in Texas.
While the new law blocks agencies from sharing their data outside the state, Sannon noted federal authorities can still subpoena the data.
State lawmakers approved several other amendments that drastically weakened the bill’s protections, Sannon said, including allowing police to search their databases by vehicle characteristic and when investigating gross misdemeanors, such as violating a protection order or driving under the influence.
The original bill proposal had limited police to searching their database only by license plate numbers and for investigating felonies like murder or armed robbery.
Allowing police to search their databases by vehicle characteristics — such as a car’s model or color — could “sweep in” a large number of vehicles not associated with any suspected wrongdoing, Sannon said. Police could then conduct traffic stops of drivers based on that data — interactions that have sometimes turned deadly.
Criticism of the amendments did not surprise Trudeau, who expected the bill would require compromises.
While Trudeau didn’t support all of the amendments, she said she was “very proud” the law achieved three goals: establishing “strong rules” for how public agencies use the cameras, ways to ensure agencies and companies follow the rules and consequences such as a lawsuit if they don’t. The law allows people to sue vendors for breaking the state's regulation.
Trudeau said some lawmakers and law enforcement groups had advocated for keeping footage for up to 60 days. Some lawmakers and Ferguson also pushed hard for allowing police to use the cameras when investigating gross misdemeanors because they include more “serious” offenses like stalking.
“I don’t like these cameras either, and if you ask me, at the local level I’d be very uncomfortable with the cameras,” Trudeau said earlier this month. “But we’ve got to make sure that where they are going to be used, those three things still remain.”
For Trudeau, other victories included restricting the footage from being disclosed outside of research purposes. Before the bill passed, some judges had ruled that footage captured by the cameras are public records and must be made public.
“For communities that have been really nervous about not having rules of the road, I hope they feel glad those exist now,” she said. “People always find a way to violate the law, but it’s our job to make sure we catch it, and that’s truly the best we can do when it comes to the job.”
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