Arlington leaders address public’s concerns about use of Flock cameras

Arlington city leaders provided insight into the police department’s usage of Flock license plate readers this week in two public discussions. 

The discussions, one at a town hall hosted Monday by Mayor Jim Ross and the other during the city council’s afternoon work session Tuesday, sought to allay privacy concerns surrounding the usage of the system. 

The cameras, Police Chief Al Jones said Monday, have been an invaluable tool for solving crime in the city.  

Even still, Jones said, residents’ questions are legitimate. 

“Our responsibility extends beyond technology effectiveness,” Jones said. “We must use it appropriately.”  

Flock cameras vital to solving major crimes, chief says 

In the December 2023 murder of 56-year-old Tho Tieu, Jones said the cameras helped police track the suspect through the Dallas-Fort Worth area and eventually to Houston, where he was arrested. 

Because of the cameras, police were able to determine that the suspect had been following Tieu since the night prior to the murder and had changed license plates multiple times throughout the commission of the crime, Jones said. 

In other cases, Flock cameras have been used to find stolen vehicles and protect children from sex offenders, Jones said. 

In a December 2025 case, police use Flock cameras to locate a kidnapping suspect within 36 minutes of receiving initial reports about the crime, according to materials presented to city council members.  

System subject to stringent safeguards, new guidelines 

In response to concerns about privacy, the department modified its access protocol effective Sep. 1, according to the materials presented at Tuesday’s work session.  

Access to the system is now limited to police sergeants, five patrol officers per shift, and units including the criminal investigations division and the city’s Real Time Crime Center.  

To search for the license plate reader system, users must provide a case number, the type of crime being investigated, and a short explanation of why the search is necessary, Jones said.  

An automated audit system within the Flock software continuously flags unusual patterns such as repeated searches for the same license plate by the same user, Jones said.  

Still, some privacy advocates aren’t fully convinced that such safeguards are enough for automated license plate readers (ALPR).

“Access controls matter, but they don’t answer the fundamental question of whether continuously collecting and storing the movements of thousands of people who are not suspected of a crime is necessary or proportionate to the public-safety benefit,” said Phil Mynona, leader of the anti-surveillance group Texas Privacy Coalition.

“There is no question that an ALPR can help police locate a particular vehicle in a particular investigation, Mynona said. “The policy question is whether those individual successes justify building a system that records the movements of everyone else in order to produce them.

Jones clarified at Monday’s town hall that Flock is a brand of automated license plate readers, similar to how Coca-Cola is a brand of soft drink. The city has been using some form of automated license plate reader system since 2010 and hasn’t had any issues, Jones said.

The city’s Flock system consists of 134 cameras and data is retained from them for 30 days unless indicated otherwise for a criminal investigation, according to Flock’s own online database. 

As of Nov. 11, the system has detected 1.5 million unique license plates in the preceding 30 days, according to the database. The department has conducted 1,184 search sessions, and there have been 30,371 alerts to plates. 

The cameras do not use facial recognition, continuously track vehicles or capture personal information like names or driver details, Jones said. 

Because usage of the cameras is limited to criminal matters, the department does not use them to conduct immigration enforcement, which is a civil matter, Jones said. 

‘Arlington does it right’ 

At Monday’s town hall, Mayor Jim Ross committed to working with the incoming Texas legislature if they were to pass new regulations regarding Flock usage. 

He also defended the city’s usage of the system, saying in part that Arlington “doesn’t play games with” law enforcement misconduct and data privacy. 

“Arlington does it right,” Ross said. “We don’t sell our data. You can’t get that data any other way than from us.”

“In my opinion, we have to balance protecting our community and protecting our community from the Big Brother stuff as well,” Ross said. “But, I’m telling you, please don’t try to paint us all with a broad brush.” 

Ross compared residents’ concerns about Flock cameras to concerns about previous developments in law enforcement technology, like the switch from radar speed detectors to laser detectors. 

“Do you know how many people went crazy about us going from radar guns to the laser stuff? You would’ve thought we were stealing their firstborn,” Ross said.  “This is an evolution… to better protect people on things.” 

During Tuesday’s council session, District 8 council member Jason Shelton said he had similar hopes for the technology. 

“We need to make the case that technology has always helped policing and then show the public why this is good,” Shelton said, “And then maybe some of this dust will settle with time.”