Texas will cut off state agency funding for Flock cameras,\u00a0Gov. Greg Abbott\u2019s office said Friday, a move that could affect Dallas and other cities\u2019 networks of the AI-powered license plate readers.<\/p>\n
The decision marks an abrupt turn for a surveillance technology that state grants helped police departments rapidly deploy across Texas. But scrutiny of Flock Safety, one of the dominant vendors, has intensified amid allegations of police misuse and concerns that its sprawling network allows authorities to track motorists with little public oversight.<\/p>\n
Communities across Texas \u2014 including Wylie<\/a> and Hood County<\/a> in North Texas \u2014 have canceled or declined to renew Flock contracts. Abbott\u2019s office also cited the indictment of a Lufkin police officer on 100 felony counts tied to alleged misuse of Flock information and said criminal investigations were underway elsewhere.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is a crackdown across Texas,\u201d Andrew Mahaleris, an Abbott spokesperson, said in a statement to The Dallas Morning News.\u00a0<\/p>\n The statement did not identify which state agencies or grant programs were affected, when the restrictions would take effect or whether they would apply to money already awarded.<\/p>\n The Texas Tribune first reported the change ordered by Abbott, a Republican running for reelection.<\/p>\n Paris Lewbel, a Flock spokesperson, said the technology was an important public safety tool for agencies across Texas but didn’t comment specifically on the move.<\/p>\n “We support thoughtful legislation and strong privacy, transparency and accountability guardrails that ensure technology is used responsibly while preserving law enforcement\u2019s ability to use effective tools to keep people safe,” Lewbel said in a statement.<\/p>\n Dallas has relied on such state support to expand its network \u2014 which police say totals more than 670 cameras throughout the city.<\/p>\n In May 2025, when the City Council approved a three-year, $5.7 million contract with Flock, it designated nearly $1.7 million from a Motor Vehicle Crime Prevention Authority grant aimed at combating catalytic converter theft.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Motor Vehicle Crime Prevention Authority, housed within the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles, awards grants to local police agencies and regional task forces to investigate and prevent vehicle theft, burglary, fraud and catalytic converter crimes. Its funding comes largely from a state fee on automobile insurance policies.<\/p>\n Asked whether Motor Vehicle Crime Prevention Authority funds were among those now barred from being used for Flock, Mahaleris responded: \u201cAll state agency funds.\u201d<\/p>\n Dallas police spokesperson Allison Hudson said Friday that the department had not received correspondence from the governor’s office advising of the change.<\/p>\n Earlier this month, Flock Safety announced new safeguards requiring users to provide more information when searching its database. The company also said it would expand an auditing tool designed to flag potentially improper searches by officers.<\/p>\n The Dallas police department has not caught any of its officers misusing Flock, police told\u00a0The News earlier this month.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Texas will cut off state agency funding for Flock cameras,\u00a0Gov. Greg Abbott\u2019s office said Friday, a move that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":419746,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[732,27,29,28,89512,87998],"class_list":["post-419745","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-article","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news","tag-tp-texas","tag-tp-dallas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419745","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=419745"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419745\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/419746"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=419745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=419745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=419745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}