Surveillance System Undermines Abortion Shield Law In Two Washington Cities

Automatic license plate reader (ALPR) technology threatens to undermine Washington State’s status as a pro-choice sanctuary. Last month, as originally published by 404 Media, a sheriff’s office in Texas used ALPR data to aid in a “search for female” who “had an abortion”—sifting through license plate records from thousands of police departments across the country, including the Yakima Police Department (YPD) and Prosser Police Department.

The fact that a sheriff from a state with so-called abortion travel bans could access data from a Washington city to hunt for an abortion seeker reveals a potential loophole to Washington' recent abortion shield law, designed to protect out-of-state abortion serkers from legal repercussions at home. A loophole that could widen as more cities across the state adopt ALPR systems despite impassioned warnings from privacy advocates that the best way to avoid this data getting into the wrong hands is to not collect it in the first place. 

In 2023, the Washington State legislature passed a “shield law” that aimed to protect people traveling from their hostile states to seek reproductive and gender affirming health care in anticipation of a flood of out-of-state abortion patients after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe V. Wade. The law prohibits Washington state and local agencies and law enforcement from dolling out information or cooperating with states that ban abortion among other things. 

Enter Flock Safety. Flock Safety is an increasingly popular surveillance company hellbent on creating a nationwide mass-surveillance network, as the ACLU describes it. Some ALPR camera systems snap photos of license plates, compare the numbers to local hot lists, and then quickly discard the data if no match turns up. But Flock Safety holds on to the records and allows any of its cop customers to search through the data. 

On May 9, an officer from Johnson County Texas, identified as simply “J. Smi,” searched the Flock Safety database. Officer “J. Smi” searched almost 7,000 Flock Safety customers and more than 83,000 Flock Safety devices for any appearance of a specific license plate number (now public record by the way) between April 9 and May 9. Cops have to record a reason for searches in Flock Safety — usually “stolen vehicle,” or “warrant,” or simply “suspect.” This cop wrote, “had an abortion, search for female.”

The police departments did not respond to The Burner’s request for comment on the search or what came of it. As a disclaimer: A search does not mean a result. But the search in itself brings new legitimacy to concerns raised by ALPR opponents. 

Advocates have warned that the company’s database could help cops punish reproductive choice or help ICE track down undocumented immigrants, undermining a whole host of Washington legislation to protect abortion patients and immigrants. 

Since the founding of Flock Safety in 2017, many cities across Washington state have adopted its surveillance system including Arlington, Bonney Lake, Centralia, College Place, Eatonville, Everett, Kent, Lakewood, Marysville, Medina, Olympia, Prosser, Puyallap, Richland, Selah, Shelton, Spokane County, Sumner, Tukwila, and Walla Walla. Readers of The Burner may remember that the Seattle City Council voted to massively expand use of ALPRs, but Seattle does not use Flock Safety specifically. 

Typically, police departments or City Council’s pitch ALPR’s as a common sense strategy to identify stolen vehicles, stolen license plates, and potentially locate individuals involved in crimes or wanted for warrants. However, researchers at the University of Washington found that the database rarely helped police departments find vehicles of interest. The Bellingham Police department reported 0.000027% of searches in their ALPR database found a vehicle of interest. Monroe Police Department reported a hit rate of 0.00032% and Bremerton Police Department 0.00189%.

With little practical application, privacy advocates argue the purported benefit of occasionally retracing a suspect’s steps does not outweigh the potential security risks associated with the blanket mass surveillance of everyone who drives a car. Researchers at the University of Washington found that these technologies put abortion seekers and undocumented immigrants at risk in spite of a host of resolutions and legislation aimed to protect them. 

Rep. Drew Hansen (D-Bainbridge), who sponsored the shield law, did not respond to my request for comment.