As the Hays County Commissioners Court continues discussions around Flock automated license plate reading (ALPRs) cameras, community activists met to oppose the cameras, while local officials discussed potential benefits.
ALPRs are cameras that read the license plates of cars for law enforcement purposes, such as finding stolen vehicles or missing persons. The Hays County Commissioners Court has discussed allowing the sheriff’s office to purchase additional cameras twice already, but decided to table the vote both times.
The first panel was held by Mano Amiga, a local activist group that supports immigration and criminal reform. The group opposes the Flock cameras due to concerns about transparency, misuse and privacy concerns. The group also called the cameras unconstitutional, expressing concerns that they could be used for immigration enforcement, or to punish women who violate Texas’s abortion ban by traveling out of state.
Nathan Pino, a criminologist who spoke at the event, gave examples of times Flock cameras had been misused.
“In central Kansas, [a] police chief accessed the system over 200 times over a four-month period to monitor his ex-girlfriend and her new partner,” Pino said. “And then also in Kansas, a lieutenant in the police department was arrested for using the flight system to monitor his estranged wife.”
Eric Martinez, executive director of Mano Amiga, said he had spoken to the sheriff’s office before holding the panel. He claimed in that discussion, the sheriff’s office spoke about the auditing process for their use of the Flock systems.
“They also had said that they would audit their own records right to see that officers were using it appropriately and for a specific function,” Martinez said. “However, they would only audit one month… every three months.”
Immediately after Mano Amiga’s panel, Sheriff Anthony Hipolito, County Commissioners Debbie Ingalsbe and Michelle Cohen and three employees of the sheriff’s office showed a presentation and held a discussion about the Flock cameras.
“We’ve had Flock here in Hays County since 2022. We’ve used it quite successfully over the last three years,” Hipolito said. “I understand and respect everybody’s different opinions and beliefs on what Flock is or any other issue. Our job is to listen to those issues and try to address those questions.”
According to Hipolito, the county has five active Flock cameras, with a sixth camera currently not active. The cameras are currently placed in Dripping Springs, Cedar Valley, Buda, Niederwald and one between Driftwood and Kyle.
According to Robert Wojtanowicz, strategic analyst supervisor for the sheriff’s office, the cameras scan around a million license plates a month, with somewhere between 150 and 200 scans being used for “investigative purposes.”
Much of the discussion for the panel revolved around the sheriff’s office not tracking the number of times an ALPR scan has led to an arrest and conviction. According to the officials from the sheriff’s office, they do not track that data because the ALPRs are only ever used to generate a lead, with an actual investigation coming later.
“It doesn’t solve a crime, it doesn’t prevent a crime, it provides a lead for police to go do police work,” Capt. Shane Smith said.
Other concerns the public voiced were fears of the data being used for immigration purposes. Hipolito said the data from Hays County ALPRs are not currently shared with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), but that data may be indirectly shared through the Texas Department of Public Safety and it is also currently shared with Customs and Border Patrol.
According to the sheriff’s office, there is a National Crime Information Center (NCIC) list of certain things that cause a “hit” or notification to be sent to the sheriff’s office. Hits will be sent out for license plates connected to an individual who has a protection order against them, is a registered sex offender, has an active arrest warrant, is a “violent person,” “Gang or suspected terrorist,” and for stolen license plates and vehicles. Wojtanowicz was unable to define what each of the terms on that list meant.
“So the NCIC is a national system,” Wojtanowicz said. “It has its own criteria of how information gets pushed.”
During Mano Amiga’s panel, they shared examples of license plates being misread by ALPRs. According to Wojtanowicz, in the Hays County Sheriff’s Office, every time an ALPR reports a license plate it is verified by a dispatcher.
“Our dispatch team will verify the image to make sure that what came in on the hit is what we’re seeing on the image. Then our dispatch team will go in and verify that,” Wojtanowicz said. “Let’s say it’s a warrant, that there is an actual active warrant that’s the verification process.”
The purchase of additional Flock ALPR will be voted on by the Hays County Commissioners Court again on Tuesday, Aug. 19.
