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Bannock County Sheriff | The Sheriff's plate readers

In August 2025 the Board of County Commissioners approved a Flock Safety order for the Sheriff's Office, paid for out of county operations. The request was for four solar-powered cameras, with the City of Lava Hot Springs buying two more.

At a glance

Approved
26 August 2025, on a motion to approve the Flock Safety order, agreement and invoice [2]
Price
Not stated in any minutes we read. The Board was told in July 2025 that buying at that point would save $4,600 and that installation fees were waived, and that live views would cost $1,000 for two years [1] [2]
How many cameras
Four for the county, with the City of Lava Hot Springs to purchase two more, as presented to the Board in July 2025 [1]
Who paid
The county, from County Operations. The Board chose that source over Contingency at the meeting that approved the order [2]
How long the data is kept
Seven days, as the Sheriff told the Board in August 2026 [3]
Who else can see it
Not stated in the minutes. The Sheriff described locating a missing woman in Jackson Hole, Wyoming through the camera subscription's data, which is a use of the vendor's wider network [3]
A written policy
The Sheriff told the Board in August 2026 that a usage policy exists and that usage and storage are audited. We could not find one published on the county website [3] [4]
Public comment received
None is recorded. The item was presented at a Thursday business meeting in July 2025 and approved four weeks later under a signature-only heading [1] [2]

How it happened

  1. Debate

    The Sheriff's office presents the packages

    The Sheriff's chief deputy explains the technology to the Board. The cameras are solar powered, the cost includes the database of information collected from them, and the request is for four cameras with the City of Lava Hot Springs purchasing two. Buying at that point would save $4,600, installation fees were being waived, and live views would cost $1,000 for two years. The Board directs staff to move forward. [1]

  2. Decision

    Approved, funded from county operations

    The comptroller reviews funding options for the plate readers from County Operations or Contingency, and the Board selects County Operations. A commissioner moves to approve the Flock Safety order and invoice as it comes in. The motion passes. The day's action summary records the order, agreement and invoice as approved, assigned to the Sheriff. [2]

  3. Context

    The Sheriff tells the Board how the cameras are used

    The Sheriff tells the Board that the cameras do not record everything and photograph license plates only, and gives three cases where the data helped: a van reported for attempting to entice children, a bar fight in Lava Hot Springs, and a missing woman located in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. He says the data is not under constant surveillance and is used when something happens, that a usage policy exists, that the data is stored for seven days, and that usage and storage are audited. [3]

The county has its own plate readers, separate from the city’s, and they arrived the following year on a much smaller scale.

What the Board was told

On 31 July 2025 the Sheriff’s chief deputy came to the Board of County Commissioners to review Flock Safety plate reader packages. The minutes are brief. The cameras are solar powered. The cost includes the database of information collected from them. The request was for four cameras, with the City of Lava Hot Springs purchasing two more. Buying at that point would save $4,600, installation fees were being waived at the time, and live views would add $1,000 for two years. The Board directed staff to move forward.

What it approved

Four weeks later the comptroller brought the Board a choice of where the money should come from, County Operations or Contingency. The Board picked County Operations, and a commissioner moved to approve the Flock Safety order and invoice as it came in. The motion passed. The item sat on that day’s agenda under a signature-only heading, separate from the consent agenda.

No dollar figure appears in either set of minutes.

What the Sheriff said a year later

In August 2026, with plate readers under discussion across Idaho, the Sheriff spoke to the Board about the county’s cameras. He said they do not record everything and photograph license plates only, that the data is not under constant surveillance and is used when something happens, that a usage policy exists, that the data is stored for seven days, and that usage and storage are audited.

He gave three examples of what the data had done: a van reported for attempting to entice children, located from a camera; a bar fight in Lava Hot Springs where people who fled the scene were identified; and a woman whose family had not heard from her for days, tracked through the camera subscription’s data and found in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

That last one is worth reading twice. Jackson Hole is in another state, roughly 180 miles away. Four county cameras did not find her. The subscription did, because a subscription to this system is a subscription to other agencies’ cameras as well as your own.

On the map

The community has mapped 56 devices of this type in the county on OpenStreetMap. These are community reports: the vendor and operator of each point are unverified, and none is confirmed to belong to this system. See them on the map →

Street names from reverse geocoding — © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL).

What we do not know

What you can do

Show up

Systems like this one are approved by boards, councils and committees that meet in public. We have confirmed where each of them meets in Bannock County and how public comment works there.

How to show up in Bannock County →

Protect yourself

Practical steps to shrink your personal data trail. Our guides publish at launch; until then, EFF's Surveillance Self-Defense is the best starting point.

Surveillance Self-Defense →

Sources

  1. 1.
    Bannock County Board of County Commissioners minutes, 31 July 2025 · Meeting record · · accessed
  2. 2.
    Bannock County Board of County Commissioners minutes, 26 August 2025 · Meeting record · · accessed
  3. 3.
    Bannock County Board of County Commissioners minutes, 18 August 2026 · Meeting record · · accessed
  4. 4.
    Bannock County Sheriff's Office department pages · Primary document · accessed

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