SOUTH TEXAS — If you have driven across Bee, Goliad, Karnes, Live Oak, San Patricio or Aransas counties recently, you have likely passed a slender black roadside pole topped with a small solar panel and a dark camera pointed squarely at passing traffic.
They are Automated License Plate Readers (ALPRs)—most notably manufactured by technology vendor Flock Safety—and they are rapidly multiplying along major South Texas corridors, state highways and municipal intersections. While they resemble standard traffic-monitoring cameras, they do not issue speeding or red-light tickets. Instead, they continuously photograph passing vehicles, capturing license plates, vehicle color, make and model. That data is instantly uploaded to cloud networks and run against law enforcement hotlists in real time. Across the region, the technology has sparked an intense debate that pits law enforcement relying on modern technology against privacy advocates concerned about mass movement tracking.
The rollout of these surveillance tools varies significantly depending on where you travel across local counties…