A network of little black cameras on tall metal posts has sprouted up across Texas, in big cities and along remote country roads.
The cameras, produced by Atlanta-based Flock Safety, use artificial intelligence to scan every vehicle that passes by, uploading the plate number, model, color and even bumper stickers to the country’s largest vehicle surveillance database. Law enforcement agencies that contract with the company — here and across the U.S. — can search the accumulated database with a few keystrokes and without a warrant.
A backlash is growing. U.S. Rep. Keith Self, a McKinney Republican, last month proposed legislation to require federal agencies to obtain warrants before accessing Flock camera data. Meanwhile, some Texans are done debating the cameras and are dismantling them instead.
It’s unclear exactly how many cameras dot the state, in large part because one of the biggest users of the cameras is the Texas Department of Public Safety, which declines to disclose how many devices it has positioned across the state.
What is known: The state troopers have partnerships with more than 200 local law enforcement agencies across the state that allow seamless data sharing between DPS and its partner agencies.
Nationally, Flock Safety estimates some 5,000 law enforcement agencies and 6,000 communities use its surveillance products.
Advocacy groups that track camera positions across Texas estimate there are more than 10,000 cameras in the state, including several thousand concentrated in the Houston area. At least 41 cameras have been installed around Waco-area cities and state roadways since 2024, according to public records and law enforcement officials.
Many police departments consider Flock an invaluable crime-fighting tool. Opponents — including privacy, civil liberty and immigrant rights advocates — argue the system’s capacity for abuse is well established. Texas cities such as Austin and Bandera, a town of about 900 people 50 miles northwest of San Antonio, have terminated their contracts over such concerns. They are among 47 cities nationwide to do so, according to DeFlock, an anti-surveillance group monitoring the company.
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The backlash against Flock can’t be attributed to any one concern or trend, but rather a drumbeat of incidents accumulating over several years.
In Baytown, southeast of Houston, the city’s police chief last week announced a criminal investigation into an officer who was accused of misusing the city’s Flock cameras. The officer resigned Thursday, Police Chief John Stringer said, and the department did not specify what the allegations of misuse were.
Cases of Flock misidentifying suspect vehicles, however rare, have resonated well beyond the towns and cities where it happened, fueling fears of opaque technology driving arbitrary arrests.
A Colorado woman was falsely accused of package theft last year after an officer said a Flock camera found her at the scene of the crime. Her story found its way to national news outlets, as did a Denver man who was pulled over repeatedly because of his car’s mistaken addition to a Flock hotlist.
More than one incident has seen innocent motorists surrounded by officers with guns drawn.
Cases of erroneous Flock hits — where the system flags the wrong car — are happening with greater frequency as Flock’s network expands, according to the Institute for Justice, a leading public interest law firm. The institute identified 27 cases in nine states, but none in Texas as of late July.
Flock cameras have also been used to aid immigration enforcement in Texas and elsewhere, even in cases where the Flock customer explicitly restricted sharing with federal immigration agencies. Flock says it does not partner with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
However, immigration agents were able to gain back-door access to a Houston school district’s Flock data through out-of-state police departments the district shared data with, according to a February investigation by The 74. Meanwhile, an investigation by 404 Media last year found several local and state law enforcement agencies in Texas conducting searches on behalf of federal immigration agents.
Those incidents underscore how the ease of sharing data — what makes Flock so effective for solving certain crimes, such as auto theft — makes data difficult to safeguard.
See here for more on the Bandera story. This article originated in the Waco Bridge, and then the Trib gave it a broader perspective. I’m just glad to see some numbers, as staggering as they are. There continues to be resistance to Flock, both in the form of city governments rescinding contracts and more action-oriented residents taking more direct steps. I don’t condone the latter, but it’s not hard to understand where the motivation comes from. Another useful bit of information from this story is the existence of Have I Been Flocked, which I suggest you check out. I have no doubt that Flock is an effective law enforcement tool. It’s the lack of enforceable controls, the tendency to operate in the back rooms, and of course the intersection with ICE that makes it all so unpalatable. One could endeavor to at least make it all less bothersome, if one wanted to. I’m not holding my breath for Flock and its acolytes to try.