NCW Law Enforcement Agencies To Install License Plate-Reading Cameras

The Chelan County Sheriff's Office and other local law enforcement agencies are uniting in an effort to install license plate-reading cameras throughout the region.

The advanced surveillance technology is designed to record traffic in specific locations, 24 hours a day, and uses artificial intelligence to identify the license plate of every vehicle that moves through the area.

Chelan County Sheriff Mike Morrison says the cameras will be a valuable tool for identifying and tracking down criminal suspects.

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"Let's say for example that in downtown Leavenworth we have a reported hit-and-run involving a white passenger car with front passenger-side damage. Using the camera system, we can type in 'white passenger car - front passenger side damage' and it will give us a list, including photos, of every single vehicle that's come through that area and then we can look to see if we can identify a suspect vehicle from that list."

Morrison says the technology would primarily be used to identify vehicles that have been reported stolen, but it could also be used to locate individuals who are wanted for other crimes, provided their information has been uploaded into the system and any corresponding jurisdictions have authorized using the camera array to access a suspect's information.

Morrison adds that he's aware of public perceptions surrounding video surveillance technologies and wants to assure the citizens of Chelan County that the new system will only be used for its expressed purposes.

"I know that the concern is always 'is Big Brother watching?'. That's not what we're aiming for. We want to respect peoples' privacy and I can tell you that this will be no more intrusive than the DOT (Washington State Department of Transportation) cameras that are already mounted out on the highways and used for similar purposes at times. We are going to use this as a tool to help us investigate crimes. So it will give us the same access into your information that we would have if we were investigating a crime and didn't have these cameras."

To ensure the camera system is being used legally and ethically, Morrison says a transparency portal will be enacted to provide the public with official statistics about the information it collects, and screening protocols will be in place to prevent the technology from being misused.

Currently, law enforcement agencies in 73 different municipalities in the state have installed license-plate reading camera arrays, including the Cities of Moses Lake, Yakima, and Spokane.

A Georgia-based company called Flock provides most of the hardware and software for these systems, but Morrison says his agency is still in the process of vetting which company will supply the technology and where it will be introduced in Chelan County.

The new system is expected to cost approximately $85,000, with all of the money being provided by state-funded grants from the Washington Association of Sheriff's and Police Chiefs and Washington Auto Theft Prevention Authority.

In addition to the Sheriff's Office in Chelan County, the Douglas County Sheriff's Office, and the Police Departments of both Wenatchee and East Wenatchee are also looking to implement the new technology.

Morrison says he hopes to have the camera array up and running throughout Chelan County by January, 2025.