Flock debate: Oregon lawmakers poised to tackle ‘fishing expedition’ searches of license plate data

By Shaanth Nanguneri, Oregon Capital Chronicle

SALEM, Ore. -- A powerful Oregon legislative committee chair is calling for increased “safeguards and protections” on the use of data collected by a controversial crime-fighting technology scanning license plates that critics fear the Trump administration will weaponize.

Sen. Floyd Prozanski, a Eugene Democrat who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, helped convene a group of law enforcement stakeholders, privacy advocates and legislative leaders, which met in December to tackle the issue as cities across the state have debated whether to turn off their cameras employing the technology.

One vendor in particular, the Atlanta-based Flock Safety, has drawn condemnation from U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, who previously said the company is “unable and uninterested” in addressing abuses of its products.

But views among workgroup stakeholders were diverse, including law enforcement who have defended license plate readers as a valuable tool for intercepting crime to progressive activists who say such technology itself is far too vulnerable for abuse by the federal government.

Critics of some license plate reading technology have pointed to instances where the software’s data has been accessed by federal immigration enforcement agencies or used to target out-of-state abortion seekers.

“At this point, Prozanski is leaning more towards putting up some guardrails that will make it safe,” Ky Fireside, an Oregon House candidate and Springfield-based progressive organizer who is part of the workgroup, told the Capital Chronicle in December. “But the fact of the matter is, there’s not anything you can do to make this kind of technology safe. It’s just designed to be abused.”

Prozanski, however, said in an interview that he values the technology for “legitimate, lawful enforcement purposes,” pointing to its use in the arrests of suspected criminals tied to a Pacific Northwest burglary ring targeting Asian American households, including in the Eugene-Springfield area. 

He said he was also concerned about inappropriate data-sharing with the federal government or other states, as well as data brokers who are mining and selling such data for unlawful use. He added that law enforcement agencies across the state may be entering into contracts for the software without adequate data privacy protections, calling for similar protections employed by other Oregon state agencies for safeguarding information.

“They have protocols in place already on the duration of the length that can be held, (to) cross check for if someone’s making inquiries, to ensure that there has been something assigned to it, like a case number, and someone’s not going on what some people would call a fishing expedition and just picking out this request or that request,” Prozanski said. “That’s the type of stuff that we’re working on.”

New funding formula

Key to the debate over the license plate readers have been Oregon’s sanctuary laws, which prevent state and local law enforcement from assisting federal immigration enforcement without a court order. U.S. Border Patrol employed automated license plate reading technology in the 1990s, and it spread to police departments across the country in the next decade. 

A November state court ruling in Washington found that the images captured by Flock’s license plate readers are not exempt from disclosure under public records law. Prozanski confirmed he is still considering a public records exemption for such information as well as increased audits, a pathway to allow individuals whose data is improperly accessed to receive redress and certification requirements for license plate reading software vendors. 

A Flock company spokesperson did not respond to requests for comment about legislative efforts in Oregon, but company leadership have previously accused opponents of spreading misinformation, pointing to improved filters for sanctuary states. 

“We’re working under state law of Oregon, and if someone is making queries for something that happened or potentially could be actionable in a different state, it’s not what their state law provides, it’s what Oregon provides,” Prozanski said. “So we’re going to maintain safeguards and protections for those within this state.”

The state has already funded the proliferation of the technology’s use across Oregon, though in cities such as Eugene, police have backed away from their contracts with Flock. In that instance, local authorities confirmed that a license plate reading camera in the area was turned on without the city’s consent.

Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of dollars in funding for law enforcement agencies across the state has gone toward the technology, drawing from an Oregon organized retail theft grant program, according to the state’s Criminal Justice Commission. As of December, however, there have been no instances where the agency has needed to investigate reports of state law violations involving the use of state funds for license plate reading technology, according to Ryan Keck, the commission’s director. 

He said that his agency uses quarterly reports from recipients and can also conduct information audits within the scope of its grant agreements. If there were a reported violation, Keck said the agency would forward the matter for investigation. 

For new grants issued after Dec. 1, 2025, however, the agency has tightened its purse strings. New contracts include additional language for returning any funds that have been spent outside the scope of the agreement, which includes requirements to comply with state laws, Keck said. The commission in October also agreed to establish a new methodology for determining how the retail theft grant money would be awarded.  

“The Commission’s methodology prioritized applications to support local programs specific to organized retail theft (to include equipment) over applications solely requesting equipment with no specified support (ex: personnel, operations) to address organized retail theft,” he wrote in a statement.

“Moving forward, CJC will continue to monitor its grants in accordance with the terms of executed grant agreements, and remain responsive to any legislative changes,” he added.

Future legislation, continued debate likely

In an interview Friday, Fireside said that while they appreciate the work the legislative workgroup has done, the deck felt stacked in favor of law enforcement. 

The line in the sand they and other privacy advocates are drawing has to do with support for end-to-end encryption, the process by which secure data is encoded before it is transferred to its destination and decoded. Having such a safeguard would make it difficult for federal authorities to subpoena vendors for information stored securely by a law enforcement agency, Fireside said. 

“They are trying to push for like, ‘Oh, well, it’s, it’s encrypted in transit, and it’s encrypted at rest’, and that just doesn’t mean anything,” they said. “It doesn’t provide any protection.”

Prozanski, in the meantime, suggested there would be more than one proposal in the works, potentially for future sessions. Some ideas involve allocating additional funding, which is not feasible given the state’s current financial outlook, he told the Capital Chronicle, but could be in the future.

“This is probably the first beginning of more than one session dealing with this,” he said. “We’re not going to get everything done the first time.”