AUSTIN, TX — A growing number of Texas cities, counties and other local agencies are cutting ties with Flock Safety’s license plate cameras after a year of rising concern over privacy, data access and alleged misuse by police.
The latest break came in Pflugerville, where the City Council voted unanimously to end its agreement with Flock after learning that outside agencies had accessed the city’s automatic license plate reader data far more often than expected. The decision came as debate over surveillance tools widened across Texas, with more governments questioning who can see the data, how long it is kept and how it is used.
Pflugerville ends its contract after massive data access is revealed
Pflugerville officials said 459 outside agencies accessed the city’s ALPR data even though only 83 agencies had been authorized to do so. Over a six-month period, those agencies made more than 1.6 million searches of the data collected by the cameras.
After the council vote, Pflugerville Independent School District also suspended use of the cameras on district property. The move added another local government to a growing list of Texas entities that are stepping away from the technology or limiting how it is used…