Terri Chen says her immigrant neighbors are afraid to leave their homes because they believe they’re being constantly surveilled by Flock cameras and they don’t trust that the people accessing the data are using it for lawful public safety purposes.
“The cameras were put up with the pretense of solving or preventing crime,” but law enforcement officers are abusing their access to stalk their ex-partners and “launder data” to federal immigration authorities, Chen claimed at a September 8 meeting of the Harris County Commissioners Court.
Chen is a community organizer with Woori Juntos, a Harris County nonprofit that advocates for Asian and Latine immigrant communities. She and several members of the organization pleaded with county leaders to cancel the $868,975 Flock contract that was just renewed in May. The contract runs through June 2027 and covers license plate readers and gunshot detection technology.
Because of the recent backlash, several law enforcement agencies and local governments have had to review their policies — if such documents even exist — and admit in some cases that they don’t know who is accessing the data and what they’re doing with it.
Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo called a special meeting for 9 a.m. October 15 to hear from the public, law enforcement and Flock Safety vendors in an effort to gain a better understanding of whether the technology is being misused.
“I have a lot of questions,” she says. “I’ve been looking at the contract, and I asked the purchasing agent who can access the data. She said that’s not specified. Does that mean someone in the precinct office could access the data? I’m not insinuating that colleagues have encouraged that or done that themselves, but I think we should know: has anybody done that and what are the safeguards we’re going to put around that?”
Hidalgo, whose term expires at the end of the year, says she’s requesting a comprehensive report that shows the number and locations of license plate reader cameras in Harris County; how much the county has spent on the technology to date; which county law enforcement agencies use the system; which outside parties can access the data; and how many searches have been conducted by internal and external users and for what purposes. She then wants to discuss data safeguards, retention and privacy and oversight practices.
“If the public doesn’t pay attention to this, then the folks who don’t want that information to come out are going to hold back on it,” she says. “The law enforcement agencies have to voluntarily answer those questions. When we renewed the contract in May, we didn’t put in oversight provisions. Would the company be willing to amend that? My hope is that we’ll have some answers on the 15th.”
It’s already common knowledge that officers across the state have abused their access to the camera footage, says Texas Civil Rights Project senior advocacy manager Christopher Rivera. Unreasonable searches and seizures are a violation of Texans’ Fourth Amendment rights, he says, adding that the lack of transparency rightfully creates suspicion.
Three Harris County sheriff’s deputies had their Flock access suspended last month pending an investigation into “potentially questionable use of the technology” that was uncovered when a USA Today reporter who had analyzed Flock data contacted the department with questions.
The sheriff’s office said policy violations could result in discipline, including termination, and that evidence of possible criminal wrongdoing would be forwarded to the Harris County District Attorney’s Office. As of last Friday, one of the three officers was found to be using the data appropriately to make an arrest. Internal affairs investigations are still ongoing for the other two.
Harris County Sheriff’s Office Senior Policy and Communications Advisor Jason Spencer says, “There are no allegations of misuse. It’s only that their usage raised a flag because they had repeatedly run searches for the same license plate over an extended period of time. No one came forward and made an allegation, other than USA Today saying this looks funny.”
The fact that a newspaper reporter accessed data from the Harris County Sheriff’s Office “shows how unsupervised these technologies are,” Rivera says.
The Houston Press asked Spencer who has access to the Flock data and what kind of oversight measures are in place. He responded by providing an FAQ list that is posted at the end of this story.
It doesn’t provide a lot of answers. The document states, for example, that “only authorized personnel” can access Flock data, but it doesn’t explain how many people are authorized or what their positions are. Spencer clarified that “a few hundred deputies have login credentials. It’s based on their job roles.”
“It has to be related to an active criminal investigation,” he says, adding that he cannot access the Flock data.
Rivera says he filed an open records request with Harris County to obtain its policy manual regarding Flock cameras and was told, “No responding documents were found.”
“I think it’s really important for the judge to ask for quarterly reports to show who internally is using these surveillance systems but also who, externally, is able to tap into cameras that are installed in Harris County,” Rivera says. “When your county goes into a contract, it opens you up to be in a larger network where other jurisdictions can access this information and use it to stalk their former partners or aid ICE in deportation efforts.”
“We can’t prove it because the sheriff won’t share that information,” he added. “There are no safeguards in place. Officers can just easily access the data with literally the click of a button.”
In 2018, Jersey Village became one of the first Texas communities to launch Flock cameras as a neighborhood watch tool. The city later installed Flock technology at major intersections. City officials say they’ve never had a problem with abuse.
Reports from other Houston suburbs suggest that’s unique.
In August, a Fort Bend County officer allegedly used Flock data to track a woman over several months and was subsequently charged with stalking and misuse of official information, according to court documents.
In a separate case, a Fort Bend County Sheriff’s Office lieutenant received a two-day suspension for searching one license plate 41 times and another 148 times during a three-year period. The officer acknowledged that the searches were not related to official law enforcement work and said that one of the vehicles had been “lurking” near his home and family.
A Pasadena police sergeant resigned in July while under investigation for allegedly using the department’s Flock system to track a fellow officer. A similar investigation is underway in Baytown.
The Deer Park Police Department handed down a 10-day suspension and demoted a detective to a patrol assignment after an internal audit found that the officer accessed the Flock system 165 times in a seven-month period for personal reasons.
The Deer Park PD then set up a public transparency portal through Flock Safety — an option that’s available to, but not currently used by, Harris County and Houston — so the public can view statistics and the nature of searches conducted over a 30-day period.
“I sense that most agencies are hesitant to reveal the details to the public because, one, it will cause a serious backlash and we also fear that they’re sharing the information with ICE,” Rivera says. “The public is up in arms and wants to get rid of these devices.”
Public Safety or Mass Surveillance?
Flock cameras are automated license plate readers, sometimes referred to as ALPRs, that use artificial intelligence to capture and analyze information about vehicles, including their make, model, color, and distinguishing features such as bumper stickers or dents.
If they choose to, law enforcement agencies that use them can share access with other agencies, allowing individual camera systems to become part of a broader network spanning jurisdictions across the country.
The Flock technology is used for the purpose of investigations and vehicle identification, which is different from the also-unpopular red-light cameras, posted only at intersections to catch red-light runners. ALPRs are “everywhere,” according to critics, including in residential neighborhoods, shopping centers and parking garages.
An official with Atlanta-based Flock Safety said in a presentation to the Houston City Council last year that its cameras do not use facial recognition technology.
While it’s fair to say that most residents don’t like the idea of having their movements tracked, few have come forward with allegations that they’ve been victimized by officer misuse of the data.
Rivera says it’s absolutely happening, and people are rightfully outraged that they could be tracked going to a doctor’s appointment for reproductive healthcare or attending a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous.
“When an officer is able to look into your daily routines without having some type of suspicion or a signature from a judge for a warrant, it deteriorates our right to privacy,” he says. “In Johnson County, the sheriff’s office used Flock to track a woman who was seeking an abortion. The sheriff accessed the cameras in Illinois, where abortion is legal, and was going beyond his jurisdiction to criminalize a woman seeking a medical procedure.”
The Harris County Sheriff’s Department noted in an August 14 press release that it operates 480 cameras across 20 networks, primarily municipal utility districts and neighborhood associations that have designated the sheriff’s office as its system administrators.
“Flock’s cameras focus solely on vehicles and license plates, not people. The technology does not identify individuals, analyze faces, or utilize any form of biometric data,” the press release states.
“Since 2022, the Harris County Sheriff’s Office has used Flock technology to protect our community,” Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said in a statement. “The license plate readers have thwarted kidnapping attempts, led to the quick apprehension of armed robbery crews, and helped recover countless stolen vehicles.”
The sheriff acknowledged, however, that the technology is subject to abuse. “The Harris County Sheriff’s Office can be trusted to use this technology appropriately, and we hold ourselves to the highest ethical standards. Any deputy who abuses the public trust will be held fully accountable, both professionally and criminally.”
In response to the investigation prompted by the USA Today reporter’s questions, the Harris County Sheriff’s Office implemented an auditing tool that proactively monitors deputies’ use of license plate reader technology, investigates questionable activity and requires officers to provide a descriptive case code for all license plate searches.
“I think every law enforcement agency that’s using Flock, in the last few months, has recognized that we need to put guardrails in place on how it’s used,” Spencer says. “As part of those conversations, we realized that we needed to have additional restrictions on who has access to it.”
Gonzalez says that all access is logged to promote accountability and responsible use and that license plate reader data may only be accessed for “legitimate law enforcement purposes.”
When asked if Harris County deputies share information with ICE, Spencer says, “ICE is not a Flock customer. They don’t have access to any agencies’ information. It would be a violation of policy to share it with any non-Flock customer.” The sheriff’s office also recently changed its policy to dictate that Flock data is only shared with other member law enforcement agencies in Texas.
Rivera says the argument that Flock cameras are a public safety tool is frequently used by law enforcement agencies, but they haven’t produced any substantive support that surveillance cameras equate to a reduction in crime clearance rates.
“We are allowing a lot of our liberties and the rights to privacy as well as the right to presumption of innocence until proven guilty to be lost because this technology is so faulty and it’s being abused,” he says. “It’s a really ineffective tool. People are realizing that they’ve been lied to that these are public safety tools when it’s really just mass surveillance.”
While Harris County manages 480 cameras, there are 1,438 within 10 miles of downtown Houston, according to the independent advocacy group Stop Flock Cams Now, and 3,546 across Harris County, according to the “nonpartisan, single issue” Texas Privacy Coalition.
The issue has garnered attention from lawmakers and party officials on both sides of the aisle as public pressure mounts. Gubernatorial candidate Gina Hinojosa blamed her opponent, longtime Gov. Greg Abbott, for “turning Texas into a surveillance state” days before Abbott announced in late August that he is ordering state agencies to pause funding for Flock cameras.
Rivera says he thinks Abbott is “making platitudes to slowly stop the consequences of his poor decisions.”
“Abbott created this program and the state spent $30 million to install more Flock cameras across the highways,” Rivera says. “Now he’s trying to run that back and stop permits from being issued and asking for a pause on any further installations. There are no protocols. There’s just a freeze and a cut in revenue. Some jurisdictions will lose access to their cameras but it doesn’t ban them or install safeguards. It doesn’t take them down or limit who, externally, can access those cameras.”
The Texas Tribune reported on September 24 that the funding cuts prompted 14 cities and counties to shut off more than 900 Flock cameras. The article states that Houston is shutting down 200 of its 553 Flock cameras because they were funded by state grants, but the network will largely remain intact.
The Rusk County and Waller County Republican parties adopted resolutions this year to ask the Texas Legislature to add guardrails for license plate reader systems, citing Fourth Amendment protections requiring a warrant for location data.
The Democratic nominee for Harris County judge, Letitia Plummer, who was the only member of the Houston City Council to vote against ShotSpotter gunshot detection sensors in 2022, said Harris County pays almost $900,000 a year for “a network that photographs law-abiding residents on their way to work, to church and to their children’s schools.”
“The county cannot tell you who searches that database,” she said in a statement. “It cannot tell you why. It cannot tell you where the data goes after it leaves Harris County.”
In reference to the 2022 ShotSpotter contract, Plummer says she was told it would make Houston safer. “I asked for the data instead of taking the sales pitch,” she said. “When the data came back, it showed officers being pulled off of 911 calls to chase alerts and no meaningful reduction in gun violence in the neighborhoods carrying the sensors.”
Houston’s $6M Flock Contract
Public comment sessions at Houston City Council meetings have been lengthy lately and, at times, heated, but there has been little organized opposition to Flock cameras.
That can be attributed in part to growing concerns about ICE activity in the city limits, including the July fatal shooting of longtime Houston resident Lorenzo Salgado Araujo by a federal agent.
Hundreds of residents have expressed outrage about Houston PD cooperating or collaborating with ICE, particularly officers waiting up to two hours for a federal agent to pick up someone who HPD has detained on a traffic stop. City officials have said they can’t tell the feds how to do their jobs or make them leave the city; critics argue that the local police shouldn’t do ICE agents’ jobs for them.
The City of Houston entered a five-year, $6.4 million contract with Flock Safety in 2022.
The most recent Houston City Council meeting devoted solely to a discussion on Flock was an October 14, 2025, Public Safety Committee meeting, at which Hector Solomon Valdez, Flock Safety’s director of municipal engagement, addressed the panel chaired by Council Member Amy Peck.
Valdez said the Atlanta-based company was founded in response to an uptick in crime in its CEO’s neighborhood.
Valdez says Flock technology is helping to solve about 2,800 crimes per day, including drunk driving hit-and-run accidents. They also frequently respond to “silver alerts” and Amber alerts, and the technology has provided useful information in homicide investigations across the country, he said.
“Privacy and local control of data has been and is paramount to everything that we do,” he said. “Data is owned and controlled 100 percent by customers. Flock will never and does not have the ability to share that information and will never sell that information. Your agency, as policymakers, has full control of what sharing looks like in your city.”
Data is deleted and no longer retrievable after a 30-day period, he added, noting that cities can change that retention time to, for example, comply with a records retention policy or if they anticipate more time may be needed to assign a detective to a particular case.
Rivera says that putting HPD officers, already under fire for cooperating with ICE, in control of how data is shared doesn’t give much peace of mind to immigrant communities and civil rights advocates.
While trying to locate immigrants for a deportation effort, ICE is also likely tracking their family members and neighbors, creating a sense among residents that “no one is safe,” Rivera says. “It’s impacting relatives who may be providing services or driving [immigrants] to their appointments,” he says. “They’re offering an extra layer of protection and now they’re susceptible to being watched by a rogue HPD officer or sheriff’s deputy.”
At last year’s public safety committee meeting, Council Member Tarsha Jackson pointed out that the success stories shared by Flock officials are from other states. She said she hasn’t heard about any successes HPD has had with using the surveillance system.
Peck responded that her car was stolen and it was later located through license plate reader surveillance. “I’ve seen the success personally, but more importantly, we have had murder suspects caught in District A because of these cameras. We’re happy to get with HPD and get some of those success stories over to you,” she told Jackson.
Community activist Alfredo Dominguez points to a report in the Houston Chronicle that found 1,500 individuals associated with HPD accessed Flock data in a one-year period. Two-thirds of 470,000 searches used a vague term like “investigation” or “suspect” and did not provide a case number to get into the system, the article states.
“Flock says they’re not working with immigration and they have no contracts with ICE, but we know for a fact that across the country, ICE officers are asking local law enforcement officers to do ICE searches using Flock cameras because there is no real oversight on what kinds of searches they can do,” Dominguez says.
Transparency and Oversight
Rivera says he wants the contracts canceled and the cameras removed, but he’d be grateful to see a public-facing dashboard and some oversight from the agencies that use them.
“Even if the city and county cancel the contracts, it’s really important that they take the next step and remove these devices because if we allow them to remain, they are available to external forces that can use them in a predatory way,” he says.
Even the U.S. Congress Committee on Oversight and Government Reform sounded the alarm about the lack of transparency, writing in an August 2025 letter to Flock CEO Garrett Langley, “Given the vast amount of data collected by Flock cameras, and the enormous potential for abuse, it is critical that Flock, law enforcement entities, and state and local governments are transparent and accountable for how this sensitive data is accessed and by whom.”
The letter referenced the Johnson County Sheriff’s Office tracking a woman seeking reproductive healthcare in another state and noted that “ICE agents have also reportedly used Flock data to track immigrants, improperly accessing license plate data in states and localities with laws or ordinances in place that prohibit the use of their resources to assist with the arrest of law-abiding undocumented residents.”
Rivera says it’s shocking that the letter was issued more than a year ago and it appears that many of the 5,000 agencies across the country that use Flock are just now reviewing their policies, based not on a scolding from Congress but on public pressure by constituents.
As for Chen and the members of Woori Juntos, they remain concerned about “police misuse, stalking and data laundering.”
“People in our community are literally afraid to pick up their kids from school, go grocery shopping or go to work,” Chen told the Press. “Having this constant fear of leaving your home is just inhumane. It’s also a drain on the budget. We should be funding crime prevention, which includes meeting people’s basic needs, not spying on people without their permission.”
“Our electeds continue expanding the law enforcement budget and reducing the other budgets, and we just keep getting hyper-militarized,” she added. “It’s like there’s a boot on our necks.”
