QuickTake:

The senator announced an agreement with the company that makes the cameras to filter out any out-of-state requests to Oregon law enforcement agencies that include such a reason. But opponents of the technology are skeptical, saying such a filter can easily be bypassed.

U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden has announced a commitment from the company providing license-plate reader cameras to Eugene and Springfield to filter out requests for data related to immigration or abortion coming into any Oregon law enforcement agency.

Law enforcement officials praised the agreement with the company, Flock Safety. But critics of the cameras said the filter is ineffective and easily bypassed and said the only way to prevent misuse of the collected data is not to collect it. 

Police in Eugene and Springfield have highlighted the importance of sharing data gathered by the license-plate readers with other law enforcement agencies.

Data-sharing helps find suspects wanted in connection with serious crimes, police say, like a man caught in Washington state who was wanted on suspicion of setting a fatal Springfield fire that killed two people. 

But critics opposed to the automated license-plate reader technology, or ALPR, have expressed concerns about federal authorities accessing the data and using it for immigration investigations, despite Oregon’s sanctuary laws. Some have also expressed concerns about police agencies from other states getting the data and using it to enforce laws banning or severely restricting abortion.

The announcement from Wyden’s office on Friday, July 25, said Atlanta-based Flock Safety has agreed to put in place in Oregon “privacy filters that the company has already adopted in Illinois to prevent out-of-state police searches related to abortion or immigration.”

“Oregonians should never be driving in fear that automatic license plate reader cameras installed by police departments could be abused by anti-abortion forces in other states, or by Donald Trump’s authoritarian deployment of immigration agents,” Wyden said in a statement.

Wyden, D-Ore., said he “demanded that Oregonians get the same protections” that Flock Safety has provided elsewhere. He said he’ll “keep watchdogging” the company to ensure it carries out its commitment, effective as of Friday. A Wyden spokesperson said Flock Safety made the commitment in an email to the senator’s office.

Holly Beilin, a spokesperson for Flock Safety, said in a statement that the company “believes that decisions about the use and governance of law enforcement technology are best made at the local level, in accordance with the democratic process.” In a blog post last month, the company emphasized that local police agencies control whether they share data with federal law enforcement agencies or any other police agency.

Flock Safety “worked with Sen. Wyden to ensure Oregon agencies can use Flock LPRs to keep their communities safe while respecting state law,” Beilin said.

Local reaction 

While a local citizens group remains opposed to the technology and says the search filter announced by Wyden is inadequate, a Springfield police leader praised the move.

Such an automatic filter would help, said Springfield Police Department Lt. George Crolly. He said the department a few days earlier asked Flock Safety for such a filter, which the company agreed to provide. Crolly described it as working in a similar way.

“Flock, at the request of SPD, created a new search filter for us. This filter is designed to remove SPD’s cameras from any search with a search reason that indicates that the search is connected to immigration enforcement or reproductive care,” Crolly said Friday in an email.

The Springfield filter “will apply to all searches performed, whether by SPD employees or other agencies,” Crolly said, adding that he expected the filter to be working as soon as Friday, July 25.

Springfield plans to install 25 license-plate reader cameras and is developing a policy for how the technology will be used, Crolly has said. On Friday, Crolly said the first license-plate camera in Springfield will be installed “(h)opefully in the next few weeks.”

Updates on the camera installation will be published in a “transparency portal” on the Springfield police website, Crolly said. The department is working to develop a policy on use of the cameras, Crolly has said.

In Eugene, where the first police license-plate recognition cameras were installed in May, police spokesperson Melinda McLaughlin said the department “already restricted data sharing to only Oregon law enforcement agencies and made the decision to avoid any use for immigration purposes.”

McLaughlin noted the state’s sanctuary laws, which restrict local and state police agencies from sharing information for the purposes of civil immigration enforcement.

“Also, EPD policy 1204, effective June 4, 2025, restricts EPD’s use of ALPR to purposes of law enforcement and department personnel are not allowed to use, or allow others to use, the equipment or database records for any unauthorized purpose. ‘Abortion’ is not an authorized purpose,” McLaughlin said in a written statement.

McLaughlin said the majority of the 57 license-plate reader cameras planned for Eugene will be installed by the end of July, “with a few remaining to be scheduled in the coming months.” Eugene police Capt. Jake Burke has told the Police Commission, a citizens’ advisory group, that an online “transparency portal” is also planned to share information about the license-plate readers with the community.

While citizens opposed to the technology have raised concerns about sharing data with a private company like Flock Safety, McLaughlin repeated what other Eugene police leaders have previously said: “Any law enforcement data sharing is strictly controlled and only occurs with our explicit permission.”

The citizens’ group Eyes Off Eugene, which also opposes use of the technology in Springfield, said in a statement that there’s no requirement for law enforcement agencies to fully spell out their reasons for wanting to access the data, making the filter announced by Wyden easy to bypass.

“While we appreciate Sen. Wyden’s efforts, this agreement is ineffective and relies on common misunderstandings of Flock’s product,” the group said in a statement.

“Law enforcement users need only provide a vague search reason to access the system’s vast trove of tracking data. In Flock’s own words, their agreement with Illinois ‘…means Illinois data is automatically excluded if someone enters an improper search reason.’ Yet audits from across the country consistently shows the use of search reasons as vague as ‘search,’” the group said.

Noting concerns about the structure of Eugene police’s contract with Flock Safety and the “persistent risks of leaks, hacks and breaches,” the group stated that the “only way to fully prevent our data from contributing to political persecution is to not collect it.”

Lookout Eugene-Springfield has filed records requests seeking contracts with Flock Safety for the installation of cameras.

California concerns

In California, a state where local police are prohibited from sharing license-plate reader data with federal law enforcement agencies, police agency data practices have come under scrutiny this year.

Based on access logs for the data that are considered public records, several California law enforcement agencies have used search terms related to federal law enforcement, including an “ICE case” query apparently referring to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, The San Francisco Standard has reported. The scrutiny has reportedly led to changes at the San Diego Police Department.

License-plate reader technology is already widespread nationally. A 2020 survey by the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics found that about 75% of U.S. police departments serving populations the size of Eugene made use of license-plate recognition technology. About 57% of departments serving a population similar to Springfield made use of the technology, according to the survey.

Wyden’s announcement noted that Oregon currently has no statewide policy on license-plate reader technology. Other companies, in addition to Flock Safety, offer the license-plate readers.

Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield, a Democrat, in a statement praised the new Flock commitment.

“It’s a meaningful step in the right direction, and as we continue looking at how to strengthen Oregon’s own data privacy laws, this gives us a stronger foundation to build on,” Rayfield said.