Source reporting: Texas Scorecard
The Bastrop City Council voted unanimously to decommission its Flock Safety camera system and terminate the city’s contract, Texas Scorecard reported. The decision followed a vote one week earlier to cover the cameras while officials considered privacy, data-access and oversight concerns.
The approved resolution also addresses future use of automated license plate readers. Under language discussed by the council, the city would need additional council authorization before entering a new ALPR agreement or reactivating the Flock system. That makes the action broader than a decision about a single vendor because future deployment would return to the elected council for review.
Flock cameras scan license plates and record vehicle characteristics such as make, model, color and other visible identifiers. Law-enforcement agencies can search information within the network, a feature supporters say assists investigations. Critics argue that broad collection and database access can enable tracking or misuse without sufficient judicial oversight.
Bastrop Mayor Ishmael Harris acknowledged that the system had provided evidence useful to law enforcement while also pointing to concerns about privacy, data collection, access and the city’s control over information, according to Texas Scorecard. A resident supporting the resolution called for restrictions on future ALPR contracts as well as cancellation of the existing agreement.
Flock Safety has disputed claims that it controls customer data. The company’s chief executive has said customers own the information and that it is generally stored for 30 days before deletion. Those statements describe the company’s position; the terms of individual contracts, user permissions, audit practices and data-sharing arrangements determine how a particular local system operates.
Bastrop joins several Texas cities that have rejected, canceled or deactivated Flock systems. Gov. Greg Abbott also paused state funding for the cameras in August, while lawmakers are expected to consider possible statewide safeguards during the next legislative session.
The public-integrity significance is the council’s decision to place future surveillance contracts before elected officials instead of allowing automatic or administrative reactivation. Effective oversight will still require public access to contract terms, retention settings, search logs, sharing arrangements and any costs associated with termination or removal.
The vote ends the current contract, but continued transparency will be necessary to confirm when equipment is decommissioned, what happens to previously collected data and whether any successor technology is proposed.