{"id":230250,"date":"2026-04-01T22:25:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T02:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/01\/richland-police-turn-off-flock-cameras-as-privacy-law-takes-effect-news\/"},"modified":"2026-04-02T01:00:26","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T05:00:26","slug":"richland-police-turn-off-flock-cameras-as-privacy-law-takes-effect-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/01\/richland-police-turn-off-flock-cameras-as-privacy-law-takes-effect-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Richland police turn off Flock cameras as privacy law takes effect | News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Richland police turn off Flock cameras as privacy law takes effect | News<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.nbcrightnow.com\/news\/richland-police-turn-off-flock-cameras-as-privacy-law-takes-effect\/article_e1cab277-cf45-4a9d-93c0-a93e54c20ca3.html<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-04-01 22:25:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: www.nbcrightnow.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Richland, Wash. \u2014 Richland police shut down their Flock camera system after a new state law changed how officers can use vehicle-tracking technology.<\/p>\n

The department said the cameras usually captured license plates and alerted officers when a vehicle was tied to certain investigations. Police said they turned the system off completely while they worked to meet the new privacy rules.<\/p>\n

The new law was passed on March 5 and signed this last Monday. Richland police said they had to meet several requirements before using the system again, including registering with the attorney general’s office, updating policies and limiting how long data could be stored.<\/p>\n

Chief Martin Pilcher explained why the department made the change.<\/p>\n

“As a result of the law, which was passed on March 5th and then signed just this last Monday, we are shutting down our system, no longer collecting any data, so that we can evaluate the new law and comply with it,” said Chief Martin Pilcher.<\/p>\n

During the pause, police said they would not collect or use any license plate data. The department said the shutdown would affect investigations in the short term as it waited for guidance from the state. More information about the attorney general’s office can be added here.<\/p>\n

“In this period, it will limit our ability to do that,” Pilcher said. “We will no longer be able to access the systems that can identify vehicles that were wanted, for either a gross misdemeanor or felony, or were involved with a missing person.”<\/p>\n

The change brought mixed reaction in Richland. Police said some people supported stronger privacy protections while others were concerned about losing a tool used in investigations.<\/p>\n

There is no clear timeline for when the system will return. The state had up to 180 days to create the registration process.<\/p>\n

…
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Richland police turn off Flock cameras as privacy law takes effect | News https:\/\/www.nbcrightnow.com\/news\/richland-police-turn-off-flock-cameras-as-privacy-law-takes-effect\/article_e1cab277-cf45-4a9d-93c0-a93e54c20ca3.html Publish…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":230251,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com\/nbcrightnow.com\/content\/tncms\/assets\/v3\/editorial\/b\/8e\/b8e5308e-e0ff-54a2-a710-46f50a3f90fd\/69cdd84d15ae7.image.jpg?crop=1587%2C833%2C333%2C29&resize=1200%2C630&order=crop%2Cresize","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[84],"class_list":["post-230250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-privacy","tag-tracking"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230250"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=230250"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230250\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":230252,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230250\/revisions\/230252"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/230251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=230250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=230250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=230250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}