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Snohomish County Sheriff | License plate readers

The Washington county sheriff that kept its Flock cameras running when the statute arrived: a January 2025 contract on the council's record, and a fresh policy written to the new law four months after it took effect.

At a glance

The contract
Motion 25-007, a Master Services Agreement "for vehicle identification cameras with Flock Group, Inc.", approved at the General Legislative Session of 22 January 2025; Amendment 1 (Motion 25-175) approved 9 April 2025 [1] [2]
The vendor in the room
The 22 January minutes record a Flock Group community engagement manager answering councilmembers' questions before the vote [1]
The policy
Policy 433 (4 August 2026, Lexipol format): statutory query limits, a hit alone is not reasonable suspicion, sharing only with authorized Washington agencies and documented per release, annual audits [3]
Still operating
The Sheriff's own landing page links the office's Flock transparency portal under "Flock Cameras" (fetched 27 August 2026), and the policy postdates the statute by four months [4]
Camera count and locations
not in anything published we can read: the transparency portal is behind a bot challenge we do not cross, and the policy carries no inventory. The Attorney General's registration list (due late September 2026) and the records request are the closers [3]
Retention
the policy defers to "the Washington State Law Enforcement Records Retention Schedule and the ALPR SOP"; the SOP is unpublished, so whether practice meets the statute's 21-day cap is a records request away [3]

How it happened

  1. Decision

    The council approves the Flock agreement

    Motion 25-007 passes the General Legislative Session after the Community Safety and Justice Committee's 14 January review, with a Flock community engagement manager answering questions in the room. [1]

  2. Decision

    Amendment 1

    Motion 25-175, re-assigned to the Committee of the Whole, approved 9 April 2025. [2]

  3. Context

    The statute arrives, and this county's readers stay on

    RCW 10.130 takes effect. Pierce County's sheriff deactivates its readers the next morning and Spokane County's follows within days; Snohomish County's office keeps operating. [5]

  4. Context

    A policy written to the statute

    The office publishes Policy 433: statutory query purposes, no stops on a bare hit, documented sharing restricted to authorized Washington agencies, annual audits, retention deferred to an unpublished SOP. [3]

The county that adapted

Three Washington county sheriffs ran Flock plate readers into 30 March 2026, when RCW 10.130 took effect. Pierce County’s deactivated roughly two hundred readers the next morning. Spokane County’s disabled nearly a hundred within two days. Snohomish County’s stayed on, and four months later the office published a policy written to the statute: queries limited to the law’s purposes, no stops on a bare hit, sharing confined to authorized Washington agencies with every release documented, an annual audit. One law produced three different county records, and this is the one where the technology survived contact with it.

What the record shows, and what it withholds

The contract’s whole council trail is public: committee review on 14 January 2025, approval on 22 January with Flock’s own community engagement manager answering questions before the vote, an amendment that April. The operational half is thinner. Nothing published carries a camera count or a map; the office’s transparency portal sits behind a bot challenge this project does not cross, and the policy’s retention clause points at a standard operating procedure the office does not publish. The statute closes both gaps on its own schedule: registration with the Attorney General was due by late September 2026, and from December 2027 the office must post an annual report with camera locations on its own website. The drafted records request asks now; the statute’s calendar answers eventually either way.

On the map

The community has mapped 314 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 not yet confirmed where each of them meets in Snohomish County.

What we have documented in Snohomish 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.
    Snohomish County Council, General Legislative Session minutes, 22 January 2025 (Motion 25-007), with the Community Safety and Justice Committee minutes of 14 January 2025 · Primary document · · accessed
  2. 2.
    General Legislative Session minutes, 9 April 2025 (Motion 25-175, Amendment 1) · Primary document · · accessed
  3. 3.
    Snohomish County Sheriff's Office Policy 433, Automated License Plate Readers (ALPR), dated 4 August 2026, on the county's DocumentCenter · Primary document · · accessed
  4. 4.
    The Sheriff's Office landing page, linking the office's Flock transparency portal · Primary document · · accessed
  5. 5.
    Revised Code of Washington, chapter 10.130, Washington State Legislature · Law · · accessed

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