Can License Plate Camera Footage Help Your Car Accident Case in Washington?
Drive through Seattle, Everett, Pierce County, or almost any other part of Washington these days, and odds are a Flock Safety camera has already photographed your license plate. More than 80 cities, counties, and tribal governments across the state now run these automated license plate readers (ALPRs), and after a wave of legislative and legal fights in 2025 and 2026, how that footage gets used, kept, and accessed has fundamentally changed.
For anyone who’s been in a car accident, that raises a practical question: could this footage actually help or hurt your case? Here’s what changed, what’s happening with this technology nationally, and what it means if you’re dealing with an accident claim in Washington right now.
A National Reckoning Over Flock Cameras
Washington isn’t the only state rethinking this technology. Across the country, a string of misuse allegations has pushed both lawmakers and the company itself to tighten the rules.
In Georgia, a website called Have I Been Flocked now let’s drivers search publicly released Flock audit logs to see whether a local police department has ever run their plate. Its creator, Jason Hunyar of Dunwoody, Georgia, built the tool after filing his own open records requests and finding what he described as misuse in his community. Because the site depends entirely on records that agencies choose to release, its database is necessarily incomplete. Some jurisdictions’ logs are outdated, unavailable, or missing altogether. Hunyar has encouraged residents elsewhere to file their own requests and contribute what they find, arguing that audit logs are public information people have a right to see.
That effort came amid a run of real misuse cases making headlines this August. An Indianapolis officer was suspended, with the police chief recommending termination, after allegedly running plate searches for personal reasons rather than police work. In Macon, Georgia, three former Bibb County sheriff’s deputies were arrested on August 10, 2026, after an internal audit reportedly found they’d used Flock data for non-law-enforcement purposes. Days later, a Milledgeville police major was charged with misusing the same camera system.
Flock Safety itself responded to the growing scrutiny with company-wide changes. The company announced it’s cutting its recommended default data retention from 30 days down to 7, and rolling out automatic lockouts that suspend a user’s search access the moment the system flags potentially improper activity, pending review by a supervisor. Those changes apply to the underlying platform used by law enforcement agencies across the country, including many in Washington. For scale, Flock says its cameras now operate in roughly 5,000 communities across 49 states, connected to more than 4,800 law enforcement agencies, conducting billions of license plate scans a year.
What Changed Here in Washington
Washington took its own, more formal approach: legislation rather than voluntary company policy. Until recently, the state had essentially no statewide rulebook for ALPR use at all. Individual police departments set their own retention periods, some holding data for 30 days or longer, with few restrictions on sharing it outside their own agency. That gap closed on March 30, 2026, when Governor Bob Ferguson signed Engrossed Substitute Senate Bill 6002, the Driver Privacy Act, adding a new chapter to Title 10 RCW.
A few of the law’s core provisions:
- Police may use ALPR systems only for defined purposes: felony and gross-misdemeanor investigations, locating stolen vehicles, active warrants, and missing or endangered people.
- Data collected must be deleted within 21 days in most cases, with exceptions for open investigations, valid warrants or subpoenas, and certain traffic studies.
- Agencies cannot use the technology for immigration enforcement, or to monitor constitutionally protected activity.
- Perhaps counterintuitively, ALPR data is now largely shielded from public records requests under chapter 42.56 RCW, a reversal from where things stood after a 2025 court ruling that briefly opened this data up to disclosure.
- Misusing the system on purpose is now a gross misdemeanor, and can also trigger liability under the state’s Consumer Protection Act (chapter 19.86 RCW).
Several Washington cities had already backed away from Flock contracts before the law even passed; Mountlake Terrace, Lynnwood, and Everett among them, citing trust and oversight concerns. Others kept their networks running, arguing the cameras genuinely help solve crime and recover stolen cars. That same tension- public safety usefulness versus a real risk of misuse is exactly what played out in Georgia, just through investigative journalism and criminal charges instead of a legislative session.
The Records Fight That Preceded the Law
Part of what pushed lawmakers to act was a Skagit County court case that played out just months earlier. In November 2025, a Skagit County Superior Court judge ruled that Flock camera images qualify as public records under Washington’s Public Records Act, siding with a Washington resident who had sued the cities of Stanwood and Sedro-Woolley after they refused to release ALPR footage he’d requested. The judge found that the images were “created and used to further a governmental purpose” and paid for by the cities themselves. Meaning they couldn’t hide behind the fact that Flock, a private vendor, physically stored the data.
That ruling briefly opened the door to the kind of public transparency Georgia’s Have I Been Flocked site relies on. The Driver Privacy Act closed much of that door again a few months later by exempting ALPR data from public disclosure, a tradeoff regulators framed as protecting driver privacy, but one that also means Washington residents generally can’t replicate what Hunyar built in Georgia using their own state’s records.
Real Cases Show Both Sides of the Debate
Washington police departments point to specific cases to justify keeping these systems running. In Kent, Flock camera data reportedly helped deputies locate a suspect vehicle connected to an I-5 shooting, leading to an arrest and the recovery of handguns. In Lynnwood, during a period when its cameras were active, the department credited the system with helping recover 10 stolen vehicles in just four months. Nationally, the National Insurance Crime Bureau reported nearly 660,000 vehicles stolen across the U.S. in 2025. An average of one roughly every 48 seconds, which is the backdrop law enforcement points to when defending the technology’s investigative value.
At the same time, Pierce County Sheriff Keith Swank shut down his department’s entire ALPR system after the Driver Privacy Act passed, calling the new restrictions unworkable and arguing they’d prevent deputies from distinguishing stolen or wanted vehicles from ordinary traffic. His decision illustrates how unsettled this issue still is even among Washington law enforcement; some agencies see the law as a reasonable guardrail, others see it as gutting a tool they’d come to rely on.
Does This Evidence Actually Hold Up in Court?
Yes, under current Washington law, this type of footage is generally admissible. In January 2026, the Washington Court of Appeals addressed the issue directly in State v. Simonson, ruling that a Flock camera photographing a license plate on a public street does not constitute a “search” under the Fourth Amendment or Article I, Section 7 of the Washington Constitution.
The court’s reasoning centers on a simple principle: a license plate is already visible to anyone driving past on a public road, so there’s no reasonable expectation of privacy for a camera to violate. A fixed ALPR camera capturing that same plate is treated no differently than an officer observing it in plain sight.
In practical terms, this means properly obtained and authenticated ALPR footage can be introduced as evidence, whether the case involves a criminal hit-and-run charge or a civil injury claim.
Where This Fits Into an Accident Claim
ALPR technology wasn’t built with personal injury cases in mind, but it does intersect with the kind of evidence that shapes a Washington accident claim in a few specific ways:
- Establishing a timeline. Because ALPR cameras log the exact time and location a vehicle passed a fixed point, this data can sometimes corroborate or contradict a disputed account of where someone was right before or after a crash.
- Tracking down a driver who fled. In hit-and-run cases, these camera networks have genuinely helped Washington police identify a suspect vehicle when witness descriptions alone weren’t enough, the same investigative value behind cases like the Kent I-5 shooting response.
- A narrow, closing window. The 21-day retention rule cuts both ways. It protects driver privacy, but it also means potentially useful footage disappears fast. Waiting even a couple of weeks to figure out whether ALPR data applies to your accident could mean it’s already been deleted.
- Getting your hands on it isn’t simple anymore. Because this data is now largely exempt from public disclosure, an individual driver generally can’t just file a records request and get the footage, the way they could pull an ordinary police report before the Driver Privacy Act passed. In most cases, the footage has to already be part of an active investigation, or an attorney needs to obtain it through a subpoena during litigation.
- Reliability is under more scrutiny than ever. With misuse cases surfacing in other states, questions about who accessed a piece of footage, when, and why aren’t just theoretical anymore. If ALPR data ends up supporting a police report or gets introduced in a civil claim, how it was accessed can matter just as much as what it shows.
- Fewer cameras in some areas could mean less available evidence. With Pierce County and other jurisdictions deactivating systems following the new law, ALPR coverage across Washington isn’t uniform; whether footage exists at all now depends heavily on where your accident happened.
Common Questions About ALPR Footage and Accident Claims
Can I personally request Flock camera footage related to my accident?
Not directly, in most cases. The Driver Privacy Act exempts ALPR data from Washington’s Public Records Act except for narrow research exceptions. If footage exists, it’s typically accessible only through an active police investigation or a subpoena.
How long does Washington law enforcement actually keep this data?
Generally, 21 days, unless it’s already tied to an open case, a warrant, a subpoena, or a specific traffic study. That’s actually longer than Flock’s own new nationwide default of 7 days, Washington’s law sets the floor for agencies here, regardless of what the company recommends elsewhere.
Is this kind of footage reliable enough to use in court?
Under State v. Simonson, courts have treated properly obtained ALPR images as constitutionally sound evidence not the kind of tracking that would raise Fourth Amendment concerns. That said, misuse allegations in other states are a reminder that how the data was accessed matters too.
Does every Washington city still use these cameras?
No. Coverage varies significantly. Cities including Redmond, Everett, and Pierce County have suspended or shut down their systems, most around the time the new law passed, while others have kept theirs running.
What should I do if I think this evidence applies to my crash?
Talk to an attorney quickly. Given the 21-day retention limit and the new restrictions on public access. Early legal involvement is often the only real path to preserving this evidence before it’s gone.
If You’ve Been in an Accident, Don’t Wait to Find Out What Evidence Exists
Modern car accident cases rarely rest on eyewitness accounts alone anymore; dashcams, traffic cameras, and now ALPR logs can all play a role in reconstructing what actually happened. Washington’s own traffic safety numbers are a reminder of how much is at stake: the Washington Traffic Safety Commission reported 659 preliminary traffic fatalities in 2025, down from a 33-year high of 809 in 2023, but still a serious toll for families across the state.
At Brumley Law Firm, we move quickly to identify and preserve every piece of evidence that could strengthen your case, including footage that Washington’s new privacy law only keeps around for a few weeks.
Call Brumley Law Firm at (833)- 740-2275 for a free legal consultation. Reaching out doesn’t create an attorney-client relationship, so hold off on sharing confidential details until the firm confirms it can take on your case.
Sources
KOMO News – Kent I-5 shooting suspect tracked via Flock camera network
Lynnwood Times – Lynnwood terminates Flock Safety cameras due to trust and oversight issues
https://lynnwoodtimes.com/2026/02/24/flock-safety/
The Daily Herald (HeraldNet) – Everett reactivates Flock camera network after passage of new law (city-by-city contract history)
Fox News – Washington court says Flock camera images are public records
https://www.foxnews.com/tech/washington-court-says-flock-camera-images-public-records
KIRO 7 – Pierce County Sheriff’s Office deactivates its automated license plate readers
Washington Courts – State v. Simonson
https://www.courts.wa.gov/content/petitions/1052375%20Answer%20to%20Petition%20for%20Review.pdf
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution – Georgia sheriff’s deputies arrested, charged with stalking, misusing Flock
https://www.ajc.com/news/2026/08/3-georgia-sheriffs-deputies-arrested-for-stalking-misusing-flock/
FOX 59 (Indianapolis) – IMPD officer accused of misusing Flock license plate readers gets suspended
Flock Safety – Flock guardrails address LPR privacy concerns and police transparency
National Insurance Crime Bureau – U.S. Vehicle Thefts Experience Historic Decline (2025 data)
https://www.nicb.org/news/news-releases/us-vehicle-thefts-experience-historic-decline
Washington State Standard – Deaths on Washington roads drop again
https://washingtonstatestandard.com/2026/05/19/deaths-on-washington-roads-drop-again/
