The U.S. Border Patrol accessed Flock Safety camera data from the Chehalis Police Department and the Centralia Police Department without “explicit authorization,” according to a recent report from the University of Washington Center for Human Rights (UWCHR), published Oct. 21.
According to the study, Centralia and Chehalis were two of at least 10 state police departments that were subjected to “back-door” access from Border Patrol from May to August, though the exact method for how the federal agency obtained that access was unclear.
The UWCHR suggested access could have either come via a national “back door,” or if the local departments had activated a “National Lookup” feature in their respective Flock system settings.
“In either case, the fact that the searches occurred raises important questions about compliance with Washington’s Keep Washington Working law, which bars law enforcement agencies across the state from dedicating local resources for purposes of civil immigration enforcement,” the report states.
The information for the study came primarily from records requests filed with 48 state law enforcement agencies. As of its publication date, the UWCHR had received and reviewed records from 35 jurisdictions.
According to the study, at least eight state law enforcement agencies had enabled direct sharing of their networks with Border Patrol. At least one state agency may have conducted Flock data searches on behalf of Border Patrol.
License plate data, which is captured by Flock cameras and tracked through its system, is frequently used by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to identify and locate potential targets, the UWCHR found during its research.
Flock Safety was founded in 2017 and is used not only by law enforcement agencies, but also businesses such as Home Depot, as well as neighborhood associations.
Flock uses AI to store license plate information on all vehicles that pass by its cameras. A Flock user can then search the massive Flock database by filtering information such as plate number, vehicle color, make, or even physical condition, according to the report.
Each agency or company has its own Flock camera network and can — at least theoretically — choose how it shares its own data. For example, local police departments can choose to share their Flock network data with all state law enforcement agencies, or nationwide, or limit that access to within its county. They can also choose to not share it at all.
The sharing of Flock data has been useful in apprehending a number of suspects within Western Washington, and was notably instrumental in the arrest of Jeffrey Zizz, who was charged with murdering 82-year-old Tenino woman Marcia Norman in April.
Still, questions surrounding the accessibility of Flock data — despite theoretical protections — have caused concern from local and state agencies and organizations like UWCHR.
According to the UWCHR, the state Department of Licensing has taken recent steps to suspend federal access to its own Driver and Plate Search database.
The UWCHR study noted the “growing controversy” concerning access to Flock data, and mentioned a number of cities whose law enforcement agencies have either canceled or suspended their contracts with Flock, including Austin, Texas; Sedona, Arizona; Syracuse, New York; and Berkeley, California, among others.
“The proliferation of these technologies impacts the rights of all Washingtonians,” the UWCHR concludes in its report. “And at a time when many of our neighbors are being subjected to raids by federal immigration authorities, which may result in fates as dire as their being forcibly disappeared, Washingtonians expect that our government exercise particular caution in sharing data with the federal agencies involved in such abuses.”
Centralia Police Department Commander David Clary said his department was surprised to discover that a federal agency had briefly accessed their network data, and has since learned the access was granted as part of a “pilot program” between Flock and federal law enforcement.
That program has ended, according to Clary.
“The only federal outfit that we ever gave access to was the Postal Inspector and that was during a time when we had a lot of porch pirates occurring in the city, and that has since been revoked,” Clary said.
The commander noted that the Centralia Police Department doesn’t allow people to use its cameras without a case number, and indicated the department is compliant with state law.
“We follow the Washington state law in terms of the immigration enforcement, in that we will assist only for the safety of others, but we’re not an agency,” Clary said, adding that the police department isn’t working to assist ICE or “hunt folks down for them.”
Clary emphasized just how instrumental Flock cameras have been in assisting local law enforcement with its investigations, calling them a “very powerful tool for solving crimes.”
“The really wonderful thing about it is that, obviously, it becomes something where we can search for a particular license plate,” Clary said. “For example, if you had a shooting and someone got a partial license plate or description of a car, you can go and search that car out and find it. And so to be able to then locate that shooting suspect as quickly as you can with this tool is just — it's an extraordinary tool that we can use to help the public. And that exact scenario is something that we have done here in the city.”
Clary said that the pictures taken by Flock cameras are, in effect, no different than photos that could otherwise be taken by an officer standing on the corner as cars go by.
“There always has to be a reason for someone to enter a vehicle into Flock or run a Flock search,” Clary added. “Those reasons are always logged and they have to be legitimate or they'll be denied.”
The Chronicle also reached out to the Chehalis Police Department for comment, but has not heard back as of presstime.
To read the full report by the UWCHR, visit https://jsis.washington.edu/humanrights/2025/10/21/leaving-the-door-wide-open/
