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Kent police defend Flock license‑plate readers, announce tighter controls after UW report
Summary
Chief Padilla told the City Council Kent operates roughly 20 Flock license‑plate readers, stores images for 30 days and has reconfigured access and instituted commander review of federal requests after a University of Washington report flagged third‑party vulnerabilities elsewhere.
Chief Padilla told the Kent City Council on Nov. 18 that the Kent Police Department operates Flock automatic license‑plate readers at about 20 locations in the city and that the agency has tightened access controls after recent media coverage of vulnerabilities in other jurisdictions.
"For those who may not know what Flock cameras are, these are automatic license plate readers," Padilla said, describing how the cameras photograph license plates and vehicles at major intersections and store images for 30 days. He said images unrelated to criminal matters are deleted after that retention period.
Padilla referenced a University of Washington Center for Human Rights study that reported several Washington agencies had inadvertently allowed third‑party or federal access to camera data. "Thankfully Kent was not one of the agencies listed as having shared data for civil immigration purposes," he said, and told council staff checked that Kent's data was used only for criminal investigations, including work with Homeland Security Investigations and a homicide inquiry.
To address the vulnerabilities noted elsewhere, Padilla said the department reconfigured its Flock system so that "only Washington state law enforcement agencies can access our data" and that he issued an order requiring that any federal request for access be routed to a commander for review and approval. He added the department is working with the vendor, Flock, to develop additional safeguards.
Padilla argued the technology has contributed to public‑safety outcomes. "Without these Flock cameras I will tell you dozens of crimes and hundreds of stolen cars and dozens of missing persons would not have been located — these crimes would not have been solved," he said, citing a recent stolen‑vehicle arrest and an example from 2024 in which camera leads helped investigators locate video and make arrests in a homicide case.
During council questions, Padilla confirmed several South King County agencies use the cameras, described the alert workflow (alerts are sent to nearby officers with an image and time/location), and said Kent had turned off the system's "national lookup" and the button that allowed federal agencies to query data. He said the department maintained internal audit logs but had not enabled a national external audit setting; that gap influenced the decision to shut down national lookups.
Padilla closed by emphasizing privacy protections: he said the department does not capture images of vehicle occupants (which he said is prohibited by law) and that stored data unrelated to investigations are deleted after the retention period. He also promoted a community program, "Shop with a Cop," and asked residents to donate via kyfs.org to support the Dec. 13 event.
The council did not take a formal action on the cameras at this meeting. The department's changes are administrative and were described as completed or in progress.
