After a prolonged discussion during Tuesday’s City Council work session, a proposed extension of the city’s Automated License Plate Reader program is no longer under consideration.
“Given concerns expressed today, I have decided to withdraw this item from the agenda at this time to provide more opportunities to address council members’ questions and do our due diligence to alleviate concerns prior to bringing this item back to City Council for consideration.” City Manager T.C Broadnax said in a message to City Council.
City Council was scheduled to consider approving the Austin Police Department’s use of the controversial automated license plate program on Thursday and discussed the issue during Tuesday’s work session.
Council members Mike Siegel and Zo Qadri have made clear their opposition to continuing the program, which will now effectively end June 30, 2025. Council members Natasha Harper-Madison and Krista Laine expressed reservations about having the program in place in view of the current political climate and uptick in arrests by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Laine, citing the concerns of the immigrant community and social justice advocates, said she would like more safeguards around the city’s use of license plate readers.
Much of the criticism of the program – from Council members, residents and a recent city audit – centers on the program’s vendor, Flock Safety.
“Today we heard powerful testimony from residents, nonprofit leaders, privacy experts, and many others,” said Siegel. “We are in an unprecedented time of authoritarian rule at the state and federal levels, and we should not be using City of Austin resources to fund a mass surveillance tool that can be used by private companies, immigration authorities, and other outside entities. I look forward to working with my colleagues on Council to support public safety strategies do not create such a risk of injury to our diverse communities.”
Council Member Marc Duchen suggested that contracting with another vendor may be the best path forward rather than “throwing the baby out with the bathwater.” A different vendor, he said, “might be more responsible or might address some of the concerns we’ve heard from the Council and constituents.”
In their report released last month, city auditors cited contract language that gives Flock an opening for sharing data with outside law enforcement agencies. According to the audit, “The contract’s language in some sections is unclear and lacks definition of key phrases. This may allow Flock Safety to retain some elements of scan data beyond the seven-day deletion requirement and then share them with outside law enforcement agencies…”
While APD is required to delete its collected data after seven days, auditors found that Flock’s obligation to delete the data within the same time period is less definitive given the vagueness of sharing “anonymized” data – data without personally identifiable information.
Council Member Chito Vela noted that license plate reader programs are already available in the private sector – gas stations, banks, and other commercial businesses, and even, he said, homeowners’ associations.
“We’re having this kind of conversation here about this tiny little slice of what APD is collecting, but we’re not really looking at the bigger picture … this may kind of be a moot conversation in the sense that all this data is already available out there,” he said, adding that the technology used in the private sector is not subject to the same safeguards that Austin has in place.
Siegel, a former attorney in the city’s law department, closed out Tuesday’s discussion, arguing the existing contract is written in such a way that if Flock were to share information with other agencies, the city would not have grounds to challenge Flock for violating the agreement.
“Under the resolution that this Council adopted, (it) gave Flock a non-exclusive, perpetual, irrevocable worldwide royalty-free, fully paid license to use, reproduce, modify and distribute the data and so there’s no legal action against Flock because the contract gives them permission to use this data,” Siegel said.
Police Chief Lisa Davis indicated she would be open to seeking another vendor for the program should Council choose to go that route. “We are not married to this technology… Flock does not have to be the vendor,” she said. “We can find a vendor that we feel is more responsible.”
Mayor Pro Tem Vanessa Fuentes, who presided over the meeting in Mayor Kirk Watson’s absence, noted that city attorneys were “working on an assessment of the discussion that we just had here and will get back to us” on their summary.
The license plate reader debate was among the longest discussions held on the dais during a work session, which the mayor typically runs at a rapid clip.
The discourse was preceded by about an hour’s worth of public testimony from community members. Some speakers, testifying through a Spanish-language interpreter, said they were fearful of leaving their homes to go to work or school when they face such enormous risks of being apprehended and separated from their families.
Marina Roberts, speaking on behalf of the Workers Defense Action Fund, said the group’s membership of more than 6,200 immigrant workers are in danger and face escalating attacks regardless of their status.
“Fighting back requires us to think in terms of how we can pass policies that keep immigrants safe by making the work of targeting them harder to do,” she said. “This vote is a critical battle in that fight.”
Photo made available through a Creative Commons license.
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