Full Petition Text:
Dear Members of the WA House and Senate Democratic Caucus;
The undersigned individuals are joining our voices together to demand that you significantly strengthen ESSB 6002 Driver Privacy Act. Over the past year, we have seen neighbors, friends, family, co-workers, farmworkers, and even roofers abducted; we've seen allies murdered in cold blood in broad daylight on camera; we've seen families torn apart, and witnessed people's lives, futures and human rights utterly disrespected and violated by federal agencies.
We need grasstops organizations AND our lawmakers to be fighting for a bill that will meaningfully and definitely protect us, as federal agencies ramp up tech and resources to plan expanded violence in WA state.
While many impacted organizations signed-on to ACLU WA's 7-day letter, we're concerned as to whether they fully understood how this technology works, the emerging AI-powered policing and surveillance technologies and admin interfaces this tech will use, nor the fact that ICE & CBP will have access to any data that is retained and stored.
As individual signers, we ask our lawmakers to take a firm and principled stand on bill positions that will definitely protect immigrants, and all targeted communities.
We Are...
Immigrants, LGBTQ+, BIPoC, and/or family members, strong allies, friends, neighbors, and people in real, material solidarity. We don't want anyone in WA having to live with the disabling fear of being abducted on the roadway. We want everyone to feel OK leaving their home and being in public, running errands, attending medical visits, going to work and school, attending events, clubs, meetings, and religous obervances and gatherings, unafraid to give birth in a hospital, and comfortable seeking out help in situations of abuse, violence, stalking, assault, or things like wage theft. We need you in this fight with us and for us, too.
We Ask...
Please strengthen ESSB 6002 in the following ways, the first being the priority:
- Strictly limit the retention of non-hotlist ALPR data to 3 minutes or less.
The gold standard would be banning dragnet surveillnace. Three minutes is a compromise, and a way that lawmakers can significantly reduce harm. New Hampshire has a 3-minute retention period.
- Remove the 30-day retention exception for traffic studies. This is a massive loophole for harm.
- Do not carve out longer retention periods for parking purposes, including Universities, colleges or any other public agencies.
- Do not accept carveouts of ALPR data from specific types of devices, whether that’s mobile ALPRs, Body Cameras, or other kinds of surveillance cameras. Treat all ALPR data itself with the same, strong standard of 3 minutes or less retention.
- Disallow private owners of ALPRs to share or sell data with government agencies, such as via voluntary feeds into law enforcement or other public agency software portals and dashboards.
- Require that law enforcement and all public agencies obtain a felony warrant to access private ALPR data.
- Ensure that ALPR data, and audit trails – including all law enforcement interactions with ALPR data - are public record. Public records laws in WA states are an important balance of power mechanism for the public.
- Tighten guardrails for who may be hotlisted/watchlisted, and ensure strong, regular oversight that enacts immediate and material accountability for any person who abuses that system.
People must be protected, whether it is convenient for public agencies and law enforcement, or not. This bill was severely weakened throughout its travels through the legislature, and its future hangs in the balance. SO TOO, DO OUR LIVES.
A truly protective law always require material change. Every advancement or fight for anyone’s rights has presented an inconvenience to the status quo, required change, and/or challenged power. Rolling back invasive surveillance and passing a strong ALPR law that will actually keep people safe is going to inconvenience some people, agencies and companies. It may mean cancelling or revisiting contracts, and changing how and where ALPR surveillance technologies can be used. Protecting people's privacy is good for working families in WA! And, protecting working families is the job of our legislature in a our sanctuary state.
We're sensitive to Tribal councils' and WA Lawmakers' desires to keep our missing person alert systems in place, and to be able to track and save plate data connected to missing persons cases, cases of violent harm, or an unfolding or active crime scene. WASPC's report made it clear that the ultra-majority of cases solved because of ALPR data were through the hot-listing of plates.
That's why we're asking lawmakers to take the wise, moderate, 3-minute or less data retention approach. We can preserve the ability to hot-list plates and save hot-list plate data, AND require the swift deletion of all non-hot-listed plates to protect people's safety and privacy. It's do-able, it's safer, and it ensures that immigrants are meaningfully protected from ICE or other agencies accessing ALPR data via side-doors, back-doors, and even front-doors.
For decades –and in some cases centuries, marginalized communities, Black, Indigenous, Brown, Asian, LGBTQ+, Muslims and people of other marginalized faiths, Poor and unhoused people have all asked that lawmakers roll back the invasive surveillance that places us in danger. But, these communities have not have not been heard, and lawmakers have allowed the steady creep and rollout of invasive policing and surveillance tech into our daily lives. In 2026, we're all seeing what happens when communities who experience the greatest systemic harm aren't listened to or proactively protected: mass surveillance harms everyone, and it's now threatening the foundation of our democracy.
WA lawmakers can begin to change this, and make history, by enacting the above amendments to pass a significantly strengthened bill that truly helps keep us safe.
ALPR-enabled cameras are tracking Washingtonian's everyday movements, and hoovering up license plate data by the hundreds of thousands every single day, all over our state. Reducing the number of days that data is currently saved to 21, does not mitigate the harm that threatens our communities by collecting and saving this data at all.
We ask respectfully ask lawmakers to bring forward the changes we have requested above, and for a 3 minute or less retention clause.
Thank you for your work.
*Organizational Affilition or Title does not indicate a position or endorsement by that organization or employer. Signatures represent individuals only.