Florida and Texas Take Action Against Flock Cameras
Florida and Texas have both taken significant steps against Flock cameras within a single week.
Florida’s Move
Florida has revoked all licence plate reader permits on its state highways, giving agencies 30 days to comply. This decision follows a memo from the state Department of Transportation, signed by Assistant Secretary Will Watts, which cites a "recent exponential increase in deployments" and "concerning reports of misuse, data privacy concerns, and surveillance schemes" as reasons for the move.
The memo specifically addresses the right of way of the State Highway System, but local police and private land are not affected. Some Florida agencies, such as the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office, have gone further, choosing to discontinue the use of licence plate readers across their jurisdictions despite the memo’s limited scope.
Texas’ Response
Texas took a different approach, freezing state funding for Flock cameras four days prior to Florida’s action. An investigation by the Texas Tribune revealed that Texans had funded a quarter of the state’s Flock network through a $1 fee added to their car insurance policies intended to combat catalytic converter theft.
The fee, which raised approximately $81 million, was directed to the Motor Vehicle Crime Prevention Authority, which in turn invested at least $30 million in Flock cameras. The Texas Tribune identified at least 3,200 Flock cameras in Texas, with the actual number potentially higher due to unclear records on some grants.
A Complex Issue
As DeFlock has mapped, there are roughly 13,000 Flock cameras in Texas, suggesting that the insurance fee funded one in four. The contracts for these cameras vary widely, with some cities and towns receiving grants for just a few cameras, while others, like Laredo and El Paso, were paid for outright.
"There’s nothing that they can tell us" about the cameras’ data, said Miguel Rodriguez, chair of the Motor Vehicle Crime Prevention Authority and police chief in Laredo, highlighting the privacy concerns that have sparked these recent actions.