Police officials in Renton, Auburn and Lakewood said they weren’t aware the federal agency had accessed their departments’ databases until they were notified last week by researchers at the University of Washington Center for Human Rights.
All three use Flock Safety’s surveillance cameras and software, which capture time- and location-stamped images and license plate numbers of any cars passing through their jurisdictions.
In a report published Tuesday, the center identified those agencies and 15 others in the state whose Flock Safety data was searched this year by the Border Patrol, a federal agency tasked with enforcing immigration laws. The agency cited “immigration” and “targeting” as reasons for some of those searches, according to the report.
In a statement Tuesday, Gov. Bob Ferguson said his office and the attorney general's office were looking into the report and working to ensure local jurisdictions are complying with the bipartisan Keep Washington Working Act," a 2019 law barring most state agencies from cooperating with immigration enforcement.
Phil Neff, a researcher who worked on the report, said it remains unclear how the Border Patrol accessed the local agencies' databases. Researchers have also not confirmed whether the searches were done for immigration enforcement purposes.
But knowing federal immigration authorities were able to access the data — often without local agencies knowing — raised serious concerns about how they could be using the surveillance technology to target vulnerable Washingtonians, especially immigrants, protesters and people seeking abortions or gender-affirming care, said Tee Sannon, director of the ACLU of Washington’s technology policy program.
"It maps people’s movements, their behaviors. It creates real risk around overreach and misuse of the surveillance technology to target people," Sannon said Tuesday. "The report that came out today shows this has not been a hypothetical concern."
The ACLU of Washington is now calling on state lawmakers to put "common-sense protections in place" for surveillance technology, such as limits on how long the collected data can be stored and how it can be shared," Sannon said.
Dan Haley, Flock Safety’s chief legal officer, said by email Tuesday that the center’s report was “full of inaccuracies and misconceptions” about the company’s technology, and that their customers’ data is never shared without their authorization.
“If agencies choose to collaborate with federal agencies, that is wholly up to them,” Haley said.
A representative for the Border Patrol acknowledged receiving a reporter's inquiry Tuesday but did not answer questions.
Seattle does not use Flock Safety, and the City Council has restricted who can access data from its 407 automated license plate readers installed on Seattle police patrol vehicles, fed to the city's Real Time Crime Center. The council has ordered that any effort by the federal government to obtain that data for immigration enforcement purposes would result in an automatic shutdown of the entire system, including more than 120 city-placed surveillance cameras, for at least 60 days.
Police officials in Auburn, Renton and Lakewood said Tuesday they did not give the Border Patrol permission to search their Flock Safety data, and they are changing their settings to prevent it from happening again. Auburn and Renton's police departments disabled a "National Lookup" option, which allowed their data to be searched by external agencies.
"There’s no indication that any Renton-specific data was misused," Renton police Chief Jon Schuldt said in a statement Monday. "But even the possibility is unacceptable.”
Ryan Rutledge, Renton’s deputy police chief, said the agency was among thousands whose data was accessed in "blanket searches" by the Border Patrol. Since reading the report, the department has blocked any external agencies from accessing its data unless they submit a request, and police are working with Flock Safety to "shore up guardrails to ensure it doesn't happen in the future," Rutledge said.
Lakewood police Chief Patrick Smith said officers use the surveillance technology to investigate serious crimes, including sex trafficking. The department contacted Flock about the report, who told them that the Border Patrol had not searched the department's data for immigration enforcement purposes, but revoked the agency's access to Lakewood's data, Smith said.
Auburn's assistant police chief, Samuel Betz, said Flock Safety's technology has been valuable for investigating and responding to violent crimes, missing people and stolen cars. Auburn police are adapting their surveillance system now to "avoid any further access for immigration enforcement purposes," he said.
After contacting Flock Safety about the report, Betz said the company added a filter that blocks data collected by state agencies in Washington from being searched for reasons like "immigration" or "ICE."
According to Neff, however, such filters can be easily sidestepped by using broader search terms like "investigation.
In a joint statement, the city of Auburn and Auburn police said they would review their Flock Safety data monthly to see who is searching it and for what reason. Any agency found using it for immigration enforcement purposes will have its access immediately revoked, the statement said.
“The integrity of our public safety systems, and the trust our community places in them, is non-negotiable,” Auburn Mayor Nancy Backus said in the statement. “We will continue to take every measure necessary to safeguard our data, uphold state law, and ensure our technology is used only for lawful and ethical policing purposes.”
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