Although the Eugene Police Department eventually shut it off, federal immigration enforcement officials initially had access to Eugene's Flock cameras, according to Flock's audits.

The University of Washington published a study in October that found in many cases police departments in Washington state were enrolled in Flock's "national lookup" feature, granting police departments nationwide access to the local departments' Flock data.

Phil Neff, a researcher who worked on that study, helped The Register-Guard interpret Flock's "network audit" that looked at searches of Eugene's Flock system, and found this was also the case here.

When Eugene first rolled out its cameras, it was enrolled in national lookup. Records show Eugene was included in 19 nationwide searches from US Border Patrol or Homeland Security in May and 197 Border Patrol searches in June.

During this time, out-of-state police departments also appeared to conduct nationwide searches on behalf of immigration enforcement that included Eugene, with many national Flock searches listing terms like "ICE" or "Immigration" as the reason for the search. The last of those came June 26 with two nationwide searches from the Jacksonville, Florida, sheriff's office for "immigration."

The audit also showed Eugene was included in the May 9 nationwide Flock search from the Johnson County, Texas, sheriff's office for a woman who "had an abortion."

Eugene eventually opted out of nationwide lookup on July 1, which is when the last searches from outside Oregon came. Skinner said when EPD rolled out Flock cameras, being enrolled in national lookup was the default.

"In those early stages of putting those cameras in, there was a short period of time where we are still really trying to hone in on what we felt like was going to be the good rhythm of where we shared information," he said and once EPD was "made aware" national lookup was on, it was turned off.

Once Eugene did this there were no more blatant immigration searches, but there continued to be vague searches. In September, there were 111 searches with the reason "investigation" and there were 20 searches from Medford police with the reason "Hehehe."

Medford police conducted regular searches of the Flock system for Homeland Security between 2021 and 2024, according to reporting from 404 Media.

There's more to know: Lane sheriff's office joins Eugene in ending Flock contract

Following a discussion at Eugene's Nov. 13 police commission meeting, Eugene updated its ALPR policy to address some of these concerns, including adding language to the policy stating:

"All searches of the ALPR system shall be documented using a case number, CAD number or searchable investigative reason."
"Eugene Police Department will opt out of the ALPR National Lookup Tool."
EPD will only opt into ALPR data-sharing with other police departments in Lane County, and law enforcement in other counties must request access on a case-by-case basis.

Lane County Sheriff Carl Wilkerson said he plans to share data with jurisdictions in Oregon, Washington and California once the sheriff's office installs cameras, because those states also have immigration sanctuary laws. Wilkerson announced Dec. 10 the sheriff's office was ending its contract with Flock Safety for license plate reading cameras.

According to Neff, the way Flock's system is set up, even if one agency shares with a second agency which then shares with a third agency, the third agency isn't able to access the first agency's data directly.