The Houston region has quietly become a hotspot for a powerful technology that links thousands of license-plate reading cameras installed by cities, homeowners associations, school districts and businesses into a nationwide surveillance network.
Police say the technology is a cost effective way to solve crimes, but residents are questioning whether the alleged benefits to public safety outweigh the risk to privacy as officers in Pasadena, Baytown and Fort Bend County are investigated for abusing the technology and news reports highlight dozens of cases nationwide of police using the tool for stalking.
Growing numbers of residents across the political spectrum are crowding public meetings to call for limits or outright bans on the cameras from leading vendor Flock Technology and its competitors. Watchdog websites have sprung up to monitor how many cameras are spreading across the Houston region and the country. And some activists have turned vigilante, vandalizing at least eight cameras in recent weeks across Houston…