Audit of APD License Plate Reader Program Reveals Privacy Concerns
City Council could renew program next month
By Austin Sanders, Fri., May 23, 2025
Activists and the Austin Police Department argued over the automated license plate reader program for years. Advocates called it “mass surveillance,” and feared that data from the readers might be used to arrest undocumented immigrants or Austinites seeking abortions. Now, with a one-year pilot program coming to a close, Council will soon have to decide if they want to renew it.
The police department has broadly adhered to the guardrails established by City Council for the department’s use of ALPRs, according to a draft report published by the Office of the City Auditor, though ambiguous contract language with one of the vendors supplying the city with cameras to support the program has stirred privacy concerns among Council members.
ALPRs utilize cameras mounted on police patrol vehicles and in fixed locations to take photos of vehicle license plates that are stored in a database along with the date, time, and location associated with each photo, all of which is accessible to law enforcement. APD operated an ALPR program until 2020 when Council suspended it; a different Council reauthorized the program in 2023 as a one-year pilot with more stringent privacy and data sharing restrictions. That pilot period is drawing to a close.
Reauthorization of the program was opposed by criminal justice advocacy groups as well as technology groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which argued the program would allow for increased government surveillance of the general public. As part of the compromise that preceded Council’s approval of the program, APD agreed that it would not retain data obtained through license plate scanners for more than seven days and that APD would not share the captured data with outside law enforcement agencies except in specific circumstances, like the investigation of violent crimes.
The audit – presented at a May 19 special called meeting of Council’s Audit and Finance Committee – offered some insight into how APD has utilized the program and how effective it has been, while revealing initial missteps around implementation of the program, some of which have been resolved and some of which are lingering.
CMs Chito Vela, Mike Siegel, and Mayor Pro Tem Vanessa Fuentes seemed to be most concerned about contract language with one of the vendors the city uses, Flock Safety (the other vendor is Axon). That language could allow Flock to retain some of the data captured with their cameras outside of the seven-day retention period and share it with outside law enforcement agencies.
The audit did not find any cases in which that actually happened, though. The audit also only found eight instances in which outside agencies requested ALPR data from APD. Still, the prospect worried Fuentes. “Council passed a resolution, city legal worked out a contract with a vendor, and the auditor did an assessment of the contract saying it is not aligned with our resolution,” Fuentes said at the meeting. “That does not give me trust as a policymaker in our city legal department.” Vela also said that if a contract with Flock were extended, that language would have to be removed.
Assistant Chief Sheldon “Scott” Askew presented some findings from the audit that show why APD is advocating for Council to extend the program. Out of an estimated 75 million license plate scans made through nine months of the pilot period, the report found that ALPRs assisted with 165 arrests and 134 criminal prosecutions. Askew said that most of the arrests were for stolen vehicle offenses or for people with outstanding warrants. Askew also noted that tracking prosecutions can be difficult as individual cases can take years to make their way through the criminal justice system. The audit also found that use of the ALPR system led to zero “incorrect or unjustified” traffic stops.
CM Marc Duchen asked Askew how often ALPRs played a role in solving a serious crime, like homicide. Askew could recall one homicide investigation where detectives used the tool and that it was difficult to say how pivotal a role the technology played in solving that case. “It’s hard to say we wouldn’t have solved that case without ALPRs,” Askew said. “The question is how long would it have taken without it and would [the suspects] have committed additional crimes?”
Council is expected to vote on extending the ALPR in early June.
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