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License-plate readers · Spokane County

Spokane County

Using license-plate readers · 4 agencies documented

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Spokane County Sheriff's Office

Status
Use suspended
Vendors
Flock Safety
Cameras
70
70 fixed-location cameras plus 18 mobile ALPRs and 6 to 10 units on mobile trailers, per The Spokesman-Review (April 2026); KXLY and The Inlander put the countywide total at nearly 100.
  1. May 20, 2025 The Spokane County Board of Commissioners approved dozens of additional Flock cameras for the sheriff's office; the vote tally was not reported. (KXLY, May 20, 2025)
  2. Oct. 2025 Sheriff John Nowels said the office's roughly 60-70 Flock cameras were not open to federal or out-of-state agencies, and that its data was shared with the Spokane, Airway Heights and Liberty Lake police departments. (The Spokesman-Review, Oct. 22, 2025)
  3. April 1, 2026 The sheriff's office switched off all of its license plate readers after the governor signed ESSB 6002, citing uncertainty over how to comply; Nowels said mobile units would likely not return to service. (The Inlander, April 9, 2026; The Spokesman-Review, April 1, 2026; KXLY, April 2, 2026)
Conflicts and open questions
  • The Oct. 2025 sharing statement is dated by the article (Oct. 22, 2025); the exact date Nowels made it is not given.
  • As of April 2026 the office gave no timeline for restarting the cameras and said some may stay off permanently (KXLY). No later reactivation was found.

Reported by news outlets; agency records not yet obtained.

Liberty Lake Police Department

Status
Using license-plate readers
Vendors
Flock Safety
Contract
Flock Safety: $64,855 year · from Jan. 2026 · Annual Flock Safety subscription renewal placed on the Liberty Lake City Council consent agenda for Jan. 6, 2026; the outcome was not reported in the source. (RANGE Media, Jan. 5, 2026)
  1. Jan. 6, 2026 An annual Flock subscription renewal costing $64,855 was on the city council's consent agenda. (RANGE Media, Jan. 5, 2026)
  2. April 2026 Liberty Lake police kept their cameras running while consulting lawyers about compliance with the new state law. (KXLY, April 2, 2026)
Conflicts and open questions
  • The April 2026 status is from a KXLY story published April 2, 2026.

Reported by news outlets; agency records not yet obtained.

Airway Heights Police Department

Status
Use suspended
Vendors
Flock Safety
  1. April 2026 Airway Heights police temporarily turned off their Flock cameras, citing the new state ALPR law; Capt. Jake Keith said the reasoning matched the sheriff's office's. (KXLY, April 3, 2026)
Conflicts and open questions
  • KXLY reported the shutdown on April 3, 2026; the exact shutdown date is not given.

Reported by news outlets; agency records not yet obtained.

Cheney Police Department

Status
Ended or removed
Vendors
Flock Safety
  1. April 2026 Cheney's Flock plate-reading cameras were switched off. (Cheney Free Press, Aug. 19, 2026)
  2. Aug. 2026 The city said the deactivated cameras are expected to be physically removed. (Cheney Free Press, Aug. 19, 2026)
Conflicts and open questions
  • Physical removal was described as expected, not confirmed, as of Aug. 19, 2026.

Reported by news outlets; agency records not yet obtained.

Statewide

  1. 2025 A University of Washington Center for Human Rights report on Flock networks in the state said as many as 80 public agencies in Washington reportedly use Flock, and examined how agencies share the data, including with federal agencies. (University of Washington Center for Human Rights, Oct. 21, 2025)
  2. Feb. 4, 2026 The state Senate passed Senate Bill 6002, sponsored by Sen. Yasmin Trudeau (D-Tacoma), 40-9. At that stage the bill required plate-reader data to be deleted within 21 days unless needed as evidence (a Senate committee had lengthened this from 72 hours), largely barred sharing, banned use for civil immigration enforcement and kept the data out of public records requests, apart from use in research. (Washington State Standard / KUOW, Feb. 5, 2026)
  3. March 2026 The state House passed SB 6002 84-10 in early March 2026. The House version added gross misdemeanors to the permitted investigative uses, and the bill returned to the Senate for concurrence. (Washington State Standard, March 6, 2026)
  4. March 30, 2026 Gov. Bob Ferguson signed SB 6002 on March 30, 2026, and it took effect at once. Police may now run plate searches only for felony or gross-misdemeanor cases, stolen cars, cars linked to people with arrest warrants, and missing or endangered people (with exceptions). Reads must be purged after 21 days unless kept as evidence, and they can be shared only for court cases. The law forbids using the readers for immigration enforcement or to monitor protected activity such as speech. It forbids collecting data near protected health care or immigration sites, schools, courts, food banks and houses of worship. Agencies must log who accessed the data and keep those logs for two years, and the data is closed to public records requests except for research. (Washington State Standard / KUOW, March 31, 2026)
  5. March 30, 2026 SB 6002 directs the Attorney General's Office to develop model plate-reader policies by July 1, 2027. Agencies must adopt them by December 2027. (Washington State Standard / KUOW, March 31, 2026; Washington State Standard, March 6, 2026)
  6. March 30, 2026 Flock Safety said it was already complying with parts of the law, such as purging data after 21 days. (Washington State Standard / KUOW, March 31, 2026)