Lawmakers added $1 to Texans’ automotive insurance coverage insurance policies. That cash paid for hundreds of Flock cameras.

In 2023, the Texas Legislature unanimously handed a legislation elevating auto insurance coverage prices for Texans by $1 to fight rampant catalytic converter theft.

Three years later, a little-known state company has devoted a minimum of $30 million of that charge towards supercharging the state’s Flock surveillance community, inserting cameras alongside highways and streets from El Paso to the Louisiana border,an evaluation by The Texas Tribune discovered.

The Motor Car Crime Prevention Authority, led by a board largely appointed by Gov. Greg Abbott, has turned the $1 charge hike into a minimum of 3,200 Flock cameras.

The company has awarded no fewer than 95 grants to assist legislation enforcement businesses buy and keep about 2,000 Flock cameras. One other $15.9 million helps the Texas Division of Public Security add virtually 1,200 extra.

The hassle is way from over. In early August, the company permitted one other $3 million to assist DPS set up 583 extra cameras alongside Texas tollways over the following 12 months.

Miguel Rodriguez, chair of the Motor Car Crime Prevention Authority, mentioned throughout an August 2023 assembly that he hoped to make use of proceeds from the charge improve to “cowl the complete state” with cameras.

Rodriguez, who can also be the Laredo Police Chief, sees the cameras as a robust legislation enforcement software, notably to fight prison organizations.

“That type of functionality straight disrupts the operational benefit these transnational prison organizations depend on, and it strengthens our means to guard each Texas communitiesand the broader area,” he mentioned in an electronic mail.

However on Friday night, after a number of requests for remark from the Tribune about its findings, Abbott’s workplace mentioned the governor was pausing all state funding for native grants for use for Flock cameras.

“To the extent that cities get any funding for these cameras, most of it comes from the federal authorities. To the extent any funding comes from Texas businesses, these businesses are clarifying that these funds can’t be used for Flock cameras,” Abbott spokesperson Andrew Mahaleris mentioned in an announcement shared first with the Tribune.

The $1 per 12 months charge improve has raised an estimated $81 million, permitting the authority to funnel $50.8 million into 234 grants which have helped reimburse police departments for officers, crime analysts and attorneys to prosecute vehicular crimes, in addition to drones and different surveillance gadgets.

The Tribune discovered company grants to police departments ranged from $7,000 for 2 Flock cameras in Bellmead, close to Waco, to virtually $1.7 million for 201 cameras in Dallas. Some metropolis networks — just like the 165 cameras in Laredo and 150 in El Paso — had been completely sponsored by the grants.

The state company doesn’t element how a lot of its grant cash went to Flock cameras. As an alternative, the Tribune tracked the grants by reviewing the car authority’s assembly information, in addition to paperwork, agendas and discussions from 101 metropolis councils and county commissions that permitted or mentioned Flock-related grants.

It’s probably the authority has paid for extra Flock cameras than the Tribune evaluation discovered as a result of 124 grants lack clear public documentation about what was bought.

The statewide effort to proliferate Flock cameras comes as backlash is mounting over the surveillance, together with from some members of the Legislature, the place the $1 charge was permitted with out opposition.

“The sheer quantity of data captured will not be one thing that’s entertained, in my opinion, by the Fourth Modification,” mentioned Rep. Mitch Little, R-Lewisville.

State Sen. Carol Alvarado and Rep. Jeff Leach, the invoice’s creator and Home sponsor, mentioned surveillance cameras had been by no means mentioned when the invoice was thought-about. Alvarado mentioned she was stunned to be taught from the Tribune that the insurance coverage charge was funding AI-supported license plate readers.

“I didn’t have that in thoughts after we handed the invoice,” mentioned Alvarado, D-Houston. “After I consider combating crime, I’m considering … extra boots on the bottom, hiring extra officers to sort out the crime or some sort of undercover work.”

Alvarado mentioned there’s a “superb line” between defending the general public from crime and defending folks’s privateness, however mentioned she didn’t plan to file laws to shift the grant necessities.

Flock cameras, the nation’s mostly used license plate reader, create a “car fingerprint” with the usage of synthetic intelligence — storing every car’s license plate, make, mannequin, colour and particulars equivalent to dents and bumper stickers in a database accessible by legislation enforcement throughout the nation with out having to acquire a search warrant.

The precise variety of Flock cameras in Texas is unclear. DeFlock, an anti-surveillance watchdog that has mapped the places of Flock cameras utilizing verified crowdsourcing, has recognized about 13,000 within the state. By that rely, the insurance coverage charge improve has paid for one in 4 Texas cameras.

That additionally represents a pointy improve in Flock cameras within the state since December 2023, when an organization spokesperson informed the car authority’s board that there have been about 7,500 cameras within the state.

Flock doesn’t disclose what number of cameras it has within the discipline, however Texas is estimated to have the second most within the nation, after California. Nationally, Flock officers say, about 7,000 legislation enforcement businesses use a complete of 120,000 cameras and different surveillance merchandise.

In Texas, state businesses don’t rely solely on car authority grants so as to add surveillance gadgets, and Abbott’s workplace pointed to federal grants for funding the cameras. DPS, for instance, has a $28.5 million contract for Flock cameras. However the grants have helped get the cameras into the arms of the state’s smaller police departments that will have struggled with the price of the gear.

Departments that decide in to Flock’s nationwide lookup program can search one another’s knowledge from wherever within the nation, permitting autos to be tracked with unprecedented effectivity.

The power to share knowledge “has been probably the most efficient methods Flock has been in a position to assist discover, simply final 12 months, over 10,000 lacking individuals,” Flock spokesperson Trevor Chandler mentioned in an interview.

However for a quickly rising coalition of Texans against the cameras, the Flock community is a harmful mixture of invasive surveillance and restricted oversight that undermines privateness rights.

Kenneth Feagins, an organizer with DFW DeFlock, considered one of a number of new grassroots anti-surveillance teams within the state, mentioned he sees an “alarming pattern” of police improperly accessing a community that may amass knowledge on the place folks dwell, store, worship and work.

“For me, it’s all the time been the query of, nicely, how a lot liberty are we keen to commerce for security?” Feagins mentioned.

Not too long ago revealed examples of misuse — together with cops utilizing Flock knowledge to stalk ex-partners and associates — have sharpened these issues.

A Lufkin officer was indicted Aug. 24 on 100 counts of misusing official data, which Abbott cited as a regarding improvement throughout a Friday radio interview. Officers in Baytown, Harris County, Fort Bend County, Temple and Pasadena even have been arrested, disciplined or investigated.

“There’s lots of malicious issues that may be carried out with this knowledge, and people issues are not hypothetical,” Feagins mentioned.

Cameras ‘modified the sport’ for police

The Motor Car Crime Prevention Authority was established by the Legislature in 1991 to fight car theft.

The authority is led by a DPS official and 6 governor-appointed board members — two from legislation enforcement, two from the insurance coverage trade and two shopper representatives.

The car authority primarily flexes its muscle through grants funded by charges added to annual auto insurance coverage premiums — $1 initially, rising to $2 in 2011 and $4 in 2019 — that largely went to fund process power efforts for police departments.

In 2023, with catalytic converter theft spiking throughout Texas, lawmakers permitted including one other $1 to the insurance coverage charge in a invoice named for Harris County Deputy Darren Almendarez, who was shot to dying after interrupting catalytic converter thieves in a grocery retailer parking zone.

The laws made no reference to license plate readers, and Rep. Brian Harrison, who voted for the invoice, mentioned he wasn’t conscious of any conversations about utilizing the charge improve that means. The Midlothian Republican filed payments that 12 months and in 2025 to require a warrant earlier than police might entry license plate reader knowledge.

“In 1,000,000 years, I by no means might have even contemplated that this is able to be used to fund what’s successfully warrantless surveillance,” Harrison mentioned. “In any other case, I can’t think about it will have gotten unanimous help. I positive as hell wouldn’t have voted for it if I knew some bureaucrat was going to redirect the cash to Flock cameras.”

Anticipating thousands and thousands from the $1 insurance coverage charge hike, the car authority in 2023 requested legislation enforcement for recommendation on how greatest to spend the cash. Automated license plate readers like Flock cameras had been by far the best choice for combatting catalytic converter theft, beating out additional time for investigators and extra coaching.

The cameras, Rodriguez mentioned, are notably useful for addressing catalytic converter theft, a “cellular, high-volume, low-witness crime” the place the car used is usually the one lead.

With out technological assist, departments had been left working with partial descriptions taken from grainy surveillance footage of suspect autos, Rodriguez mentioned.

Information from the license plate readers, recognized in legislation enforcement as LPRs, was searched 62,000 occasions in 2025, resulting in about 1,660 cleared catalytic converter theft circumstances, a report from the authority mentioned.

Pasadena Police Sgt. Douglas Buckert mentioned the cameras “modified the sport” for catalytic converter theft investigations.

“The variety of leads we’ve gotten since our division has deployed Flock cameras is outrageous,” Buckert informed the authority in early 2024. “I might have six extra investigators and never get all of it carried out.”

Grant-funded cameras, far more than different expertise, have additionally expanded the attain of police in investigations far past catalytic converter circumstances, division officers say.

Dallas Police Sgt. Bryan Roden informed board members throughout a January assembly that an authority grant let his division improve its community from 100 to 300 cameras, serving to to bust a million-dollar tire theft ring and remedy successful and run. Working with the Division of Homeland Safety, Dallas police positioned a fugitive wished for cocaine manufacturing through the use of Flock cameras he repeatedly handed to construct a “sample of life evaluation,” Roden mentioned.

Temple Police crime analyst Mike Treehern informed the Tribune that the cameras helped lower the variety of stolen autos in his metropolis, the place 84% of their Flock cameras are funded by the state grant.

“It’s completely helped us, and we might not have wherever close to the quantity of cameras that we do with out [vehicle authority] funds,” Treehern mentioned.

The grant has additionally been a power multiplier for smaller departments. In Cibolo, a metropolis north of San Antonio with a inhabitants of 36,000, an authority grant multiplied the variety of Flock cameras from 11 to 52.

“Actually, lots of our surrounding communities began taking a look at them, particularly by means of the [Motor Vehicle Crime Prevention Authority],” Cibolo Police Lt. John Wells informed board members in a January assembly. “Seguin was taking a look at them, Guadalupe County, the New Braunfels Police Division, all of our neighbors, so we began wanting as nicely.”

Hannah Foust, founding father of DeFlock Carrollton, mentioned the cameras give police surveillance energy nicely in extra of what’s wanted to cease automotive thieves.

“I do suppose that motorized vehicle theft is a priority, it’s a difficulty,” Foust mentioned. “[But] I do suppose that this grant program, and the best way it’s been used … it actually shifts the main target to a broader surveillance program, versus specializing in catalytic converter prevention.”

$1 charge hike helped DPS increase its Flock community

The authority’s most important funding in Flock got here in 2025 when it signed a three-year, $15.9 million contract with DPS to put in 1,183 cameras in a undertaking largely overseen by DPS Main Sharon Jones, the board’s self-described “professional Flock” member who left the place Aug. 1.

The contract goals to bolster DPS’ community of cameras and make it accessible to native legislation enforcement businesses in locations that in any other case couldn’t be simply reached — together with native municipalities which can be proof against the surveillance.

Patrick McBroom, police commander for the Panhandle Auto Housebreaking and Theft Unit, mentioned DPS cameras assist his process power monitor interstate visitors on the Oklahoma and New Mexico borders — areas of Texas past the view of 138 grant-funded cameras his group screens.

“All these roads main out and into Texas have DPS cameras on them, so if we’ve got stolen objects that could be going out of state, we’re in a position to have a look at these cameras to see if these autos have left the state,” McBroom mentioned.

Throughout an April dialog in regards to the DPS contract, Rodriguez famous the state police power’s cameras might enhance surveillance in areas the place locals are unwilling to put in their very own cameras. A rising variety of cities and counties, together with Austin, have canceled their Flock contracts within the face of residents’ privateness issues.

“I believe that if for no matter purpose you might be inside these jurisdictions that are not looking for Flock, let’s get along with DPS, [so] that, you realize, we are able to put these in state right-of-way. And there’s nothing that they’ll inform us,” Rodriguez mentioned to Jones.

Rodriguez informed the Tribune that the DPS community offers a wanted crime-fighting software in areashostile to Flock cameras and comparable gadgets.

Virtually 100 municipalities within the U.S. have ended their Flock contracts in response to public outcry, together with a number of in Texas, equivalent to Bandera and Hood County. Each had obtained grants for his or her cameras however ended their contracts after points with Flock set up and in response to public uproar over their use.

As criticism over the cameras has exploded — together with gadgets that had been minimize down or vandalized as acts of protest — company board members have expressed frustration at what they see as misinformation that clouds the constructive affect from the cameras.

“We’ll have a bigger dialog concerning the necessity to educate the general public, and we should put a stamp on those that are spreading false data on license plate readers,” Jones mentioned in a July grant assembly.

‘A priority for our privateness’

Foust began Carrollton’s DeFlock group after her neighbors expressed frustration on the cameras’ speedy unfold. Recognizing a digicam alongside the route her youngsters stroll to high school gave her pause; seeing one go up in entrance of her neighborhood recreation middle made her act.

“You’ll be able to’t enter or exit that complicated with out passing a Flock digicam, and that’s additionally my polling place, so that basically gave me a robust response,” Foust mentioned. “They had been in locations that we usually really feel very secure at, and there’s no issues for our security, for our youngsters’s well-being, however there out of the blue was a priority for our privateness.”

Foust is open to debate quite a lot of options to her issues, together with motion by the Texas Legislature, however mentioned step one is getting metropolis officers to be clear about their use.

“I believe earlier than we are able to have a real and sincere dialog about what laws may seem like or what guardrails or safeguards may very well be put in place, I believe we have to begin on a stage enjoying discipline of understanding,” Foust mentioned. “What’s the system, what’s it able to, and the way might it’s arrange in a means that’s supposedly secure?”

Harrison and Little mentioned they intend to file payments subsequent legislative session banning the gadgets as a result of they consider the cameras violate the Fourth Modification’s safety towards unreasonable searches. Little mentioned he’s notably involved about whether or not huge quantities of private knowledge is securely saved and whether or not Flock, a non-public firm, ought to have the ability to entry it.

“The folks in Lewisville, Texas have an affordable expectation of privateness from cops in Pampa, Texas, and but they’ll observe all that knowledge,” Little mentioned. “So the sharing of it throughout state traces, throughout jurisdictional traces, to me is very problematic.”

Harrison mentioned he was “shocked and dismayed” that so few Republicans had spoken out towards Flock cameras and what he calls blatant constitutional violations. He additionally mentioned state officers ought to take extra rapid motion to “shut off” Flock grants as a result of legislators by no means meant to make use of the insurance coverage charge improve for cameras.

“I believe the Legislature shouldn’t take this sitting down. I believe the governor ought to act on this,” Harrison mentioned. “If that’s taking place, what which means is there’s clearly no express legislative intent or course for that to be taking place.”

This text first appeared on The Texas Tribune.