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ORWELL INDEX

Washington

Okanogan County

On record

Checked 27 Aug 2026
Technologies
0
Systems
0
Devices mapped
15

Okanogan County, Washington. Device data © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL), with community reporting via DeFlock. Open the full map →

Okanogan County is writing itself drone rules in public, and its minutes captured the whole argument. Drones are already working here: emergency management flew one in a search and rescue with the Sheriff’s department in 2025 and called it a success, the undersheriff had been discussing drone use for search work, and the noxious weed office is building a volunteer drone program to spot weeds from the air. But when draft planning codes touched the subject, the minutes record that “The Planning Commission was opposed to any kind of Drone use”, and a commissioner answered that the drones “are not being used to spy on people”. By late 2025 a draft resolution establishing a county drone-use code was tabled for reading and routed to the commissioners. A rural county’s departments and its planning commission disagreeing in the open about aerial cameras is the deliberation this site exists to surface, and the records request asks where the code stands.

The record’s other notable item is a labor document. On the consent agenda of 11 November 2025, the board ratified a memorandum of understanding on surveillance equipment with Teamsters Local 760, alongside a resolution creating two county campus security guard positions. Surveillance of county workplaces entered the record through a union negotiation; the MOU’s text is not in the packets we could read, and it leads the records queue.

In 390 readable board documents across two and a half years, no plate reader, Flock, body camera, or facial recognition item appears, for the Sheriff’s Office or anyone else. That is scoped to the readable record: 105 of the board’s minutes are scanned images. The plate readers in the county belong to Omak and Brewster’s police, municipal and never merged into county counts.

What this record does not cover

The scanned-image minutes. The cities, as above.

Community contributors have mapped 15 devices across the county in OpenStreetMap. That count covers every agency and business at once and is never merged with anything above.

Trackers

Meetings, contracts, records

Nothing listed yet. The trackers launch here, and facts appear only with their sources.

How the inventory works →

What you can do

Civic action

Show up

Public comment is open to any resident, and you do not have to be an expert to use it. We have not yet confirmed where the bodies that decide for Okanogan County meet. How the inventory works explains what we check and how to check it yourself.

How the inventory works →

Personal protection

Protect yourself

Practical steps to shrink your personal data trail. Our guides publish at launch; until then, EFF's Surveillance Self-Defense is the best starting point.

Surveillance Self-Defense ↗

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