{"id":163402,"date":"2026-02-13T16:56:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T16:56:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/163402\/"},"modified":"2026-02-13T16:56:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T16:56:07","slug":"texas-dps-installs-license-plate-readers-in-austin-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/163402\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas DPS installs license plate readers in Austin"},"content":{"rendered":"

AUSTIN, Texas \u2014 Despite a community push against data sharing and the city axing surveillance measures last year, the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) has installed license plate readers on Austin roads.<\/p>\n

According to a report from the Austin American-Statesman<\/a>, DPS confirmed that it installed license plate readers along \u201cseveral state rights of way\u201d on Feb. 2 without disclosing locations.<\/p>\n

Photos shared online showed cameras on North Lamar Boulevard near Koenig Lane, the Statesman reports, and there are more on South Lamar Boulevard at West Riverside Drive and outside Austin City Hall.<\/p>\n

Flock \u2014 the company that makes the surveillance equipment and partners with law enforcement agencies \u2014 had a contract with the city until last June. Austin City Council was set to vote on whether to renew it until City Manager TC Broadnax axed the item, leaving the contract to expire on June 30, 2025.<\/p>\n

At the time, community members and some city council members expressed concerns with the license plate readers, saying the data collected by Flock could be shared with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) as immigration raids ramped up throughout the country.<\/p>\n

Austin Assistant Police Chief Sheldon Askew told Spectrum News in a previous report<\/a> that Flock cameras helped them locate and arrest violent criminals and that the department \u201cdoesn\u2019t care about what the immigration status is.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whether APD will access data collected by DPS through Flock cameras remains to be seen. APD spokesperson Anna Sabana told the Statesman that it\u2019s not part of the department\u2019s \u201cnormal practice,\u201d but \u201cinformation could be shared during joint investigations.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"AUSTIN, Texas \u2014 Despite a community push against data sharing and the city axing surveillance measures last year,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":163403,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[1061,132,134,133,5604,1226,223,1225,27],"class_list":["post-163402","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-app-public-safety","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news","tag-austin-what-you-need-to-know","tag-christine-sanchez","tag-news","tag-public-safety","tag-texas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163402","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=163402"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163402\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/163403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=163402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=163402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=163402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}