Bonney Lake police restart Flock cameras with new restrictions to comply with state laws

Our Take

Credit to KOMO News for tracking what happens when a police department actually gets caught flat-footed by its own surveillance vendor. Bonney Lake shut its Flock Safety cameras off back in December because the department's internal policies didn't line up with what Flock's system allowed, then sat on the sidelines while state lawmakers hashed out new ALPR rules. Now Chief Mark Berry says the cameras are back with 'restrictions' to bring things into compliance. That's a rare moment of a surveillance program pausing for anything, and it's worth asking exactly what those restrictions are, who audits them, and whether residents get a say before the lights blink back on.

This is the pattern across the country: a city adopts Flock first and figures out the legal and policy guardrails later, sometimes months later, sometimes never. Washington's effort to rein in retention periods, data sharing, and immigration-related misuse is a step most states haven't bothered to take. But a law on paper is only as good as its enforcement, and 'we worked out some conflicts with what Flock allowed' is a vague phrase doing a lot of heavy lifting. Vendors shouldn't be the ones deciding what counts as compliant.

Bonney Lake's pause-and-restart is a reminder that these networks don't vanish just because the cameras go dark for a few months — the hardware, the contracts, and the appetite for more tracking all stay in place. If you want to see how far this infrastructure has spread near you, check our camera map, and if you'd rather push back than just watch, our take-action page has concrete steps for pressuring your local council or department.