apnews.in · Suhas · September 6, 2026
Lawmakers Added $1 To Texans’ Car Insurance Policies. That Money Paid For Thousands Of Flock Cameras - AP News
# Lawmakers added $1 to Texans’ car insurance policies. That money paid for thousands of Flock cameras
Suhas 22 hours ago 18 minutes ago 0 15 mins
In 2023, the Texas Legislature unanimously handed a regulation elevating auto insurance 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 payment towards supercharging the state’s Flock surveillance community, putting cameras alongside highways and streets from El Paso to the Louisiana border, an evaluation by The Texas Tribune discovered.
The Motor Vehicle Crime Prevention Authority, led by a board principally appointed by Gov. Greg Abbott, has turned the $1 payment hike into a minimum of 3,200 Flock cameras.
The company has awarded no fewer than 95 grants to assist regulation enforcement companies buy and keep about 2,000 Flock cameras. Another $15.9 million helps the Texas Department of Public Safety add virtually 1,200 extra.
The effort is way from over. In early August, the company authorized 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 Vehicle Crime Prevention Authority, mentioned throughout an August 2023 meeting that he hoped to use proceeds from the payment improve to “cover the entire state” with cameras.
Rodriguez, who can be the Laredo Police Chief, sees the cameras as a strong regulation enforcement software, notably to fight felony organizations.
“That kind of capability directly disrupts the operational advantage these transnational criminal organizations rely on, and it strengthens our ability to protect both Texas communities and the broader region,” he mentioned in an e-mail.
(Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
A Flock digicam information as a car drives by way of Hermann Park close to the Houston Zoo on Sunday, Aug. 23, 2026.
But 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 to be used for Flock cameras.
“To the extent that cities get any funding for those cameras, most of it comes from the federal government. To the extent any funding comes from Texas agencies, those agencies are clarifying that those funds cannot be used for Flock cameras,” Abbott spokesperson Andrew Mahaleris said in a statement shared first with the Tribune.
The $1 per 12 months payment 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 units.
The Tribune discovered company grants to police departments ranged from $7,000 for two 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 — have been completely sponsored by the grants.
The state company doesn’t element how a lot of its grant money went to Flock cameras. Instead, 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 authorized or mentioned Flock-related grants.
It is probably going 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 payment was authorized with out opposition.
“The sheer volume of information captured is not something that is entertained, in my view, by the Fourth Amendment,” mentioned Rep. Mitch Little, R-Lewisville.
(AP)
A person rides a motorcycle previous a Flock digicam in Bay City on Sunday, Aug. 23, 2026.
State Sen. Carol Alvarado and Rep. Jeff Leach, the invoice’s creator and House sponsor, mentioned surveillance cameras have been by no means mentioned when the bill was thought of. Alvarado mentioned she was stunned to be taught from the Tribune that the insurance payment was funding AI-supported license plate readers.
“I did not have that in mind when we passed the bill,” mentioned Alvarado, D-Houston. “When I think of combating crime, I’m thinking … more boots on the ground, hiring more officers to tackle the crime or some type of undercover work.”
Alvarado mentioned there’s a “fine 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 “vehicle fingerprint” with the use of synthetic intelligence — storing every car’s license plate, make, mannequin, shade and particulars reminiscent of dents and bumper stickers in a database accessible by regulation enforcement throughout the nation with out having to receive a search warrant.
The actual quantity 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 payment 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 instructed 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 area, however Texas is estimated to have the second most within the nation, after California. Nationally, Flock officers say, about 7,000 regulation enforcement companies use a complete of 120,000 cameras and different surveillance merchandise.
In Texas, state companies don’t rely solely on car authority grants to add surveillance units, and Abbott’s workplace pointed to federal grants for funding the cameras. DPS, for instance, has a $28.5 million contract for Flock cameras. But the grants have helped get the cameras into the arms of the state’s smaller police departments which will have struggled with the price of the gear.
Departments that decide in to Flock’s nationwide lookup program can search one another’s information from anyplace within the nation, permitting automobiles to be tracked with unprecedented effectivity.
The capability to share information “has been one of the most effective ways Flock has been able to help find, just last year, over 10,000 missing persons,” Flock spokesperson Trevor Chandler mentioned in an interview.
A Flock digicam information drivers on Westheimer Road close to The Galleria in Houston on Monday, Aug. 24, 2026.
But for a quickly rising coalition of Texans opposed to 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, one of a number of new grassroots anti-surveillance teams within the state, mentioned he sees an “alarming trend” of police improperly accessing a community that may amass information on the place folks stay, store, worship and work.
“For me, it’s always been the question of, well, how much liberty are we willing to trade for safety?” Feagins mentioned.
Recently revealed examples of misuse — together with law enforcement officials utilizing Flock information to stalk ex-partners and colleagues — have sharpened these considerations.
A Lufkin officer was indicted Aug. 24 on 100 counts of misusing official dat