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ORWELL INDEX
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Spokane County Sheriff | License plate readers

A sole-source Flock contract with bidding waived, roughly one hundred cameras three years later, and a shutdown two days after the statute arrived — framed by the county as temporary, with the vehicle readers likely gone for good.

At a glance

The contract
Awarded 28 March 2023, Project P13407, estimated $205,750, sole-source: the Board waived competitive bidding under RCW 36.32.270 and 39.04.280 on a declaration that Flock alone integrates with the county's existing systems [1]
The system at shutdown
70 fixed cameras, 18 vehicle-mounted readers, and 6 to 10 radar-trailer units, per the Spokesman-Review [2]
The end
Disabled as of 1 April 2026, two days after RCW 10.130 took effect; the county's own announcement called it temporary, and the Sheriff indicated the vehicle-mounted readers likely will not resume [2]
The Sheriff, verbatim
"These imposed restrictions have made it nearly impossible for law enforcement agencies across the State of Washington to continue using ALPR systems as currently designed and implemented, and that is unacceptable" [2]
Growth between contract and shutdown
39 cameras in the April 2024 dataset snapshot; more than 60 by an independent 2025 count; nearly one hundred at shutdown. We could not find a board item describing the expansion [2] [3]
County records of the shutdown
the county's newsflash announcing it has rotated off the site; its headline survives in the search index and in press quotation, and the shutdown's paper is in the drafted records request [2]

How it happened

  1. Decision

    Sole-source award, bidding waived

    The Board waives RCW chapter 36.32's competitive bidding and awards Flock Safety hardware and software for the Sheriff, estimated $205,750, on a declaration that Flock alone integrates with already-purchased systems and that no bids had arrived on the county's procurement site. [1]

  2. Context

    The franchise amended

    The board hears and amends Flock Safety's 2022 telecommunications franchise No. 22-0534 so the company can expand "over and along County Roads and Rights of Way" — a Public Works matter, untouched by the readers going dark the following spring. [5]

  3. Context

    The statute takes effect

    RCW 10.130 makes ALPR use unlawful except as the chapter provides, bars collection near protected locations, and caps retention at 21 days. [4]

  4. Context

    The readers go dark

    The office disables roughly one hundred readers. The county's announcement, since removed from its site, was headlined "Regrettably, the Spokane County Sheriff's Office Forced to Deactivate Automated License Plate Reader"; the Sheriff cites the risk of employees facing gross misdemeanor charges under the new law, calls the shutdown temporary, and indicates the vehicle-mounted readers likely will not return. [2]

Assembled sole-source, disassembled by statute

This system’s two ends sit in different kinds of record. The beginning is a March 2023 board packet: competitive bidding waived on a declaration that Flock alone integrates with what the county already owned, an estimated $205,750 award, no bids received. The end is a press record: two days after RCW 10.130 took effect, the office disabled 70 fixed cameras, 18 vehicle readers, and its radar trailers, and the county’s own announcement of the shutdown has since rotated off its website, leaving the headline in the search index and the substance in the Spokesman-Review.

Between the ends, the system grew from the dataset’s 39 cameras in early 2024 to nearly one hundred at shutdown, and we could not find a board item presenting that expansion as a decision. That is the shape worth naming for oversight: the acquisition arrived as a bidding waiver, the growth arrived invisibly, and only the shutdown arrived as an announcement.

Three counties, one statute

Washington’s three Flock-running county sheriffs answered the same law three ways. Pierce shut its mobile readers off outright. Snohomish kept its cameras and published a statute-shaped policy. Spokane disabled everything and called it temporary, with its sheriff among the law’s sharpest critics and its fixed cameras positioned to return if compliance can be worked out. The statute’s registration list at the Attorney General, and the annual reports it requires from December 2027, will show which of the three postures lasts.

The franchise underneath

The cameras ran on more than a purchase order. In 2022 the county granted Flock Safety a telecommunications franchise, No. 22-0534, and in May 2025 the board heard and amended it so the company could “expand its telecommunications system over and along County Roads and Rights of Way.” The franchise belongs to the Public Works side of the county, not the Sheriff, and nothing in the shutdown touched it. A vendor whose cameras went dark still holds infrastructure rights on county roads, and whether anything active hangs on them is a records question.

On the map

The community has mapped 153 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 Spokane County.

What we have documented in Spokane 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.
    Spokane County Board of County Commissioners, regular session packet of 28 March 2023 (sole-source resolution and declaration, Project P13407), from the Board's CivicClerk record · Primary document · · accessed
  2. 2.
    "Spokane Sheriff's Office disables automated license plate reader due to new state regulations", Mitchell Roland and Mathew Callaghan, The Spokesman-Review, 1 April 2026 · News · · accessed
  3. 3.
    RANGE Media, independent count of Spokane County Flock cameras · News · · accessed
  4. 4.
    Revised Code of Washington, chapter 10.130, Washington State Legislature · Law · · accessed
  5. 5.
    Board of County Commissioners of Spokane County, notice and public hearing on amending Flock Safety's telecommunications franchise No. 22-0534 (agendas of 30 April and 20-21 May 2025, CivicClerk record) · Meeting record · · accessed

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