As Austin has retreated from using surveillance technology in policing, the Texas Department of Public Safety has installed several license plate reader cameras along at least one major roadway in the city — and the agency may share the collected data with local law enforcement.
DPS spokeswoman Sheridan Nolen confirmed to the American-Statesman that DPS installed automated license plate readers on Feb. 2 along “several state rights of way.” She declined to disclose specific locations or cite the total number of cameras installed. Photos surfaced online last week of cameras on North Lamar Boulevard near Koenig Lane with social media posters wondering who had installed them. DPS cameras also have been installed on South Lamar Boulevard at West Riverside Drive — and right outside Austin City Hall.
The license plate readers are manufactured by Atlanta-based Flock Safety, a surveillance technology company that has made headlines in Austin and other locales as it seeks contracts with law enforcement agencies that say the cameras greatly aid policing work.
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The cameras, which can be mounted to fixed locations or on law enforcement vehicles, snap photos of license plates that are stored in a database with the date, time and location of the photo — all of which is accessible to the law enforcement agency contracting with Flock. Nolen said in a written statement that the cameras “enhance law enforcement’s ability to keep communities safe” by helping to locate suspects, find missing persons and recover stolen property.”
The Austin City Council first approved a Police Department contract with Flock in 2023 to install license plate readers across the city. But last summer, the council declined to renew the agreement after a city audit pinpointed issues with missing data from APD logs tracking how the data was used, as well as sustained opposition from a coalition of advocacy groups concerned about privacy and civil liberty violations.
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More recently, the City Council delayed another local surveillance program amid concerns about data sharing with federal immigration authorities and coalescence around the need for an oversight ordinance governing how technology is purchased and used. Last week, council members adopted a resolution directing city staff to develop such rules.
DPS’ policy manual shows the agency’s rules around license plate cameras are notably less stringent than those included in both Austin’s original Flock contract and in the successor agreement that stalled in June.
While DPS retains all data generated by cameras for one year, Austin limited retention to seven days. DPS policy also allows the agency to share data with outside law enforcement agencies “through established agreement or as required by law,” according to the policy manual.
Nolen would not say if the Austin Police Department or any other local law enforcement agency had such an agreement. Police Department spokesperson Anna Sabana said in a prepared statement that it’s not part of the department’s “normal practice” to request access to DPS’ license plate reader database, but also that “information could be shared during joint investigations.”
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Pressed on whether the Police Department would actively seek an agreement to access DPS’ automated license plate reader data, she said “APD personnel does not have access to the DPS ALPR database, nor will APD officers access it.”
Sabana also said the department is “evaluating its previous policy regarding use of ALPR camera data from other agencies for possible reinstatement and to ensure alignment with the recently adopted City Council policy about surveillance technology.”
Data sharing has been a major concern for privacy and justice advocates, who warn that it could be used by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents seeking to locate undocumented immigrants for deportation.
Flock spokesperson Paris Lewbel said Flock does not have any kind of agreement in place with ICE or any sub-agency of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Lewbel also said the company strips all license plate images of the underlying metadata before using them to train its software, “solely to improve accuracy and reliability through machine learning.”
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City Council member Mike Siegel, one of the most vocal opponents of license plate reader cameras in Austin, said the state agency’s policies “clearly conflict” with prior council guidelines and that Austin police should be prevented from using data from the cameras.
“I expect Council to take up this issue further when we adopt a final surveillance use policy so police are not relying on a loophole to use surveillance tech our community has clearly rejected,” Siegel said.