Suburban Houston voters will be the first in Texas to decide the fate of Flock cameras
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Tuesday’s election will determine if League City can keep its 55 cameras operating along city roads.
This article was originally published by Texas Tribune.
On Tuesday, voters in the Houston-area suburb of League City will be the first in Texas to decide whether to remove Flock surveillance cameras from city streets.
Proposition A asks whether the police department in the city of 120,000 should continue using 55 Flock cameras along public roads to collect data on every passing vehicle — including license plate numbers, make, model, paint color and other identifiable characteristics like dents and bumper stickers.
The ballot item, initially intended as a way to gauge public sentiment about the cameras, describes Proposition A as nonbinding. But the City Council approved a second resolution in mid-October that pledged to remove the cameras if voters rejected them on Nov. 3.
“I want to show … we’re going to have the procedures already in place, there’s no second vote needed,” League City Mayor Nick Long said during the Oct. 13 City Council meeting.
If voters reject the cameras, Long said, “72 hours after [the vote] certification, the city will start bagging them up.”
Police praise Flock cameras and other automated license plate readers as a powerful tool for solving crimes, but growing concern about potentially intrusive surveillance, coupled with reports of police officers who abused the data, have fueled a backlash across the nation.
Long said he introduced the resolution to place the question before voters because he saw residents of all political stripes on each side of the argument.
“There's passion on both sides of the issue, and [I] felt it was best to put it out there,” Long said in an interview.
AI-powered Flock cameras, which compile vehicle information into a database accessible to law enforcement nationwide, have become a political flashpoint over the past year.
State and federal legislators from both parties have described their use as unconstitutional and ripe for abuse, with some state lawmakers promising to file legislation to ban or regulate the devices next legislative session. Gov. Greg Abbott in August banned the use of state money for Flock cameras and halted new installations along state roads, though he has not said how long the moratoriums might last.
One other U.S. city — York, Maine — is asking voters to decide the fate of Flock cameras in Tuesday’s midterm elections. In addition,Texas cities Kyle and Laredo plan to put the question to voters in May.
League City has continued using its cameras in the run-up to Election Day, while York officials have covered their cameras while awaiting a decision from voters.
Long said he understands the privacy concerns about the proliferation of the cameras, but he also has no illusions about their usefulness to police. Pointing to the use of Flock cameras in a recent missing persons case in League City, he said police “wouldn't have had anything to go on without the Flock cameras.” The case ended with the 15-year-old girl found safe in Guadalupe County.
“They definitely work, and they definitely have privacy concerns, so I think both things can be true,” he said.
Flock Safety said in a statement that it will “respect any decision League City makes” but emphasized the cameras’ role in solving several crimes in the area, including the arrest of a murder suspect.
“While we understand there are questions on public safety technology, I would like to reiterate that Flock [cameras have] had a real impact on crime in League City,” Flock Safety spokesperson Courtney Terlecki said.
The cameras’ reputation in the Houston area has been damaged by reports that five police departments in the region — including League City neighbors Pasadena and Baytown — have arrested officers or launched investigations into alleged misuse of Flock data.
Long said only six officers have access to League City’s Flock system, and two officers must work together to scan Flock data — policies he believes reduce the likelihood of abuse. But other departments’ ability to search data captured by League City’s cameras raises other questions about security, he said.
“The chance that two officers are both going to stalk somebody's ex-girlfriend is pretty low, and that's why we haven't had any issues with it,” Long said. “But the data, when it leaves League City and goes into the cloud and stored on servers or what have you, I think that's still a bigger concern.”
League City allows more than 400 agencies to access its Flock camera data. All agencies except for the FBI are in Texas, according to the city’s Flock transparency portal. League City police use the system roughly 200 times in an average 30-day period, the portal shows.