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More than a year's hotel tax, still unspentWhose Side Is the Camera On?
These cameras photograph every passing vehicle, not just suspects, and the networks are shared. Texas has no state law setting who may look, why, or for how long — HB 961 and HB 2083 both died in committee in March 2025. Every rule is set city by city, and most cities have set none.
Read this in the original
This entry provides context and source notes. Its detailed explanation remains in the original build; a separate visual breakdown has not yet been authored here.
- Start with the question and coverage below.
- Open the original to inspect the records, controls and evidence behind the finding.
- Check the source dates and methodology before comparing figures or drawing a conclusion.
What you’re looking at
A statewide atlas of automated licence plate reader surveillance in Texas: every mapped camera, which agencies run them, the 12,675 disclosed grants of access reaching 1,093 organisations across 42 states, what it costs, and where each purchase was authorised. Enter an address to see the cameras near you and who can query them.
The question behind it
Built because Flock Safety's per-agency transparency portals carry no public index, are gated against collection, and are absent from the Internet Archive entirely — the pages overwrite themselves, so anything not captured is gone. This captures them daily and keeps the history.
Why it matters
These cameras photograph every passing vehicle, not just suspects, and the networks are shared. Texas has no state law setting who may look, why, or for how long — HB 961 and HB 2083 both died in committee in March 2025. Every rule is set city by city, and most cities have set none.
Open the full visualizationSources & method
- OpenStreetMap ALPR layer via Overpass API (crowdsourced; a floor, not a census)
- Flock Safety per-agency transparency portals, captured daily with raw HTML archived and SHA-256 hashed
- City of Houston checkbook, Harris County vendor payments, Texas state contract awards
- Legistar council and commissioners-court agenda items
- US Census TIGER county and incorporated-place boundaries
- Texas DPS TOPS private security licence registry
Method
Camera locations from OpenStreetMap (14,901 devices, 13,682 Flock), assigned to 254 counties and 1,230 incorporated places by point-in-polygon. Agency statistics are self-reported on each agency's own transparency portal. Sharing grants are taken verbatim from those portals; recipient state and type are pattern-derived and marked provisional pending reviewed resolution. Spend figures separate payments actually disbursed from state award ceilings — they are different units and are never summed. 467 Texas agencies are named as Flock users in other agencies' published sharing lists; disclosure rates are stated only over agencies whose websites were checked in full.