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ORWELL INDEX

Who runs license plate readers in Kootenai County?

Also listed here because the record shows it

These systems are documented primarily as something else. They appear here because a cited record shows the deployment also does this.

On the map

0
Verified by us
13
Community-reported

Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL), including community reporting via the DeFlock project. Tiles by OpenFreeMap.

What we do not know

Coeur d'Alene Police

  • Which way does the Drug Enforcement Agency interface run? Does the City read the agency's plate reader data, does the agency read the City's, or both? The resolution's title is all the minutes carry, and the agenda packet for that meeting is not on the city's host.
  • How many cameras does the department operate, where are they, and what do they cost? None of it appears in the city record we could reach.
  • Where is the department's written plate reader policy? The Chief described monthly audits and logged queries to the Council. We could not find the document published.
  • How long does the department keep the reads?
  • Who operates the eleven Flock cameras mapped in the city? The Chief says they are privately owned. Nothing we read says whose they are.

Post Falls Police

  • What do the cameras cost? No price appears in the presentation or in the City Council record we hold from January 2023 forward.
  • Where are the nine cameras? The presentation says they are "strategically placed" and names no location.
  • Which agencies receive the data? The department says Idaho law enforcement only, and publishes a data sharing report we have not read.
  • Will the City go back to the legislature, and what did the first bill say? The presentation says the attempt died in committee and that the City will try again.
  • Who secures the data? The Chief told the Council it was likely the IT Department and undertook to confirm.

Kootenai County Sheriff

  • What happened to the cameras and the data after the contract ended? The Board removed the money in August 2025 and the contract was to run to December 2025. Its whole 2026 record, 452 documents, contains no item about the program.
  • What did the monthly audits find? The office's own policy requires them at least monthly and promises the full audit to the public with redactions. We found none published.
  • How much of the 2019 Operation Stonegarden grant of $83,350.40 bought plate reader equipment? The minutes record the reservations and the total, and nothing connecting the two.
  • What is in the data sharing memorandum of understanding the Sheriff described to the Board? No such document appears in the Board's published record.
  • What was the "electronic surveillance gear" approved from the asset forfeiture account at the same meeting as the contract? The minutes name no amount, no vendor and no equipment.

Camera registry [Post Falls Police]

  • How many cameras have been registered, and where? No city record we read gives a number.
  • What happens to a registered camera's location data, and how long is it kept? The proposal describes the feature and not its retention.
  • Is the registry switched on? The proposal is a menu of CommandCentral Community features and the City bought 74 licenses; no later city document says which of them the department turned on.
  • The EFF Atlas of Surveillance records a CityProtect camera registry at the Kootenai County Sheriff's Office, citing the vendor's own agency page. Is that a second registry, or the same platform reaching across agencies?

What license plate readers are

An automated license plate reader photographs every passing vehicle and records the plate, the time and the place. It does not watch suspects. It logs everyone, and the record is usually kept on a vendor’s servers.

How they work, why agencies buy them, and every county we have documented →

What you can do

Civic action

Show up

This technology is bought and renewed by boards, councils and committees that meet in public. We have confirmed where each of them meets in Kootenai County and how public comment works there.

How to show up in Kootenai County →

Personal protection

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 ↗