Lynnwood becomes one of the 1st in the state to terminate Flock contract

LYNNWOOD — Lynnwood is one of the first cities in the state to terminate its contract with Flock Safety amid mounting public pressure and privacy concerns.

The City Council voted 7-0 Monday to cancel the agreement with the automated license plate reader company.

Community members have urged the council to cancel the contract since late last year, when a University of Washington report found that out-of-state agencies accessed Lynnwood’s network seemingly for the purposes of immigration enforcement. The Daily Herald found identical searches in several networks throughout Snohomish County.

Before Lynnwood’s cameras went live, Flock allowed federal agencies to directly access thousands of networks throughout the country. The company had engaged in a pilot program with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection and Homeland Security Investigations.

“These big public or private corporations do not have a vested interest in the city, and their contracts are only there to make them money, and they will exploit the city for everything that they need, and that includes our data, that includes our privacy,” Lynnwood resident Tyler Hall said Monday.

In January 2025, the council unanimously approved a two-year, $171,000 contract with Flock for 25 automated license plate readers. A grant from the Washington Auto Theft Prevention Authority funded the majority of the contract. The city funded the remaining $38,000 through the police budget. The financial impact on the city from canceling the contract was not immediately clear Monday.

Flock Safety cameras use artificial intelligence to analyze vehicle footage, allowing police officers to search for a vehicle by license plate or vehicle characteristics. Many law enforcement agencies across the country have implemented the technology as an investigative tool to assist with solving crimes, including vehicle theft.

Lynnwood’s Flock cameras went live in June. Shortly after, Lynnwood Police Chief Cole Langdon learned that out-of-state agencies were accessing the network. The department had intended to only allow in-state agencies that had signed a user agreement to have access to the network. Many agencies, sometimes unknowingly, had enabled Flock’s “nationwide lookup” tool, which allows any participating agency in the U.S. to search their network. In return, they can search any participating network in the country.

The nationwide lookup feature was on for nine days in Lynnwood before Langdon turned it off. In that time, out-of-state agencies made more than 100,000 searches into Lynnwood’s network, including at least 16 directly related to immigration enforcement from two agencies. When staff contacted Flock about the searches, the company’s representatives “were not sure how this was happening,” Langdon said at a Feb. 17 work session.

After the department learned about the extent of the searches through the University of Washington report, Langdon decided to pause the program completely. It was running for about four months.

Lynnwood is the first city in Washington to terminate its contract with Flock after activating its cameras. Mountlake Terrace canceled its contract in December, before the city installed cameras. Other agencies, including Redmond and Olympia, have paused the program indefinitely. Skamania County has suspended the program until the contract expires at the end of the year, and its infrastructure will remain installed until then.

Langdon said at the Feb. 17 meeting that Flock cameras are a useful tool in crime investigation. Alternatives to Flock are more costly, Langdon said at the Feb. 17 meeting, and Lynnwood is grappling with a $5 million budget deficit.

Langdon said he would be comfortable with turning the cameras back on if the state Legislature passes Senate Bill 6002, which would be the first legislation in the state to regulate ALPR use. Mayor George Hurst asked the council Monday to postpone the vote until the bill plays out in the Legislature as only three weeks remain in the legislative session. Community members and some council members advocated for keeping the vote to Monday.

“Public trust cannot be put on hold while we wait to see if safeguards might work next time and at a time when trust in government is already fragile, continuing with a system that has breached our confidence is a risk we should not take,” council member Isabel Mata said.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

Jenna Peterson: 425-339-3486; jenna.peterson@heraldnet.com; X: @jennarpetersonn.