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Denton County Sheriff | In-car plate readers from Vigilant and Motorola

From 2020 to 2025 the Commissioners Court approved 30 mobile plate reader systems for Sheriff's Office patrol vehicles, from Vigilant Solutions and then its parent Motorola Solutions, bought through purchasing cooperatives.

At a glance

The service agreement
1 September 2020: an Enterprise Service Agreement with Vigilant for a "Standard License Plate Reader Service Package", 5-0 [1] [2]
Purchases
10 mobile systems funded July 2020 ($97,700); 5 in June 2022 ($50,510.00); 5 in July 2024 ($51,825); 10 in January 2025 ($73,300) [1] [3] [4] [6] [8]
Where they go
In patrol vehicles. The 2020 memo says the office had no fixed or trailer-mounted readers [2] [4] [8]
How it was bought
Through the Houston-Galveston Area Council and Sourcewell purchasing cooperatives, under section 271.102 of the Local Government Code [4] [6] [8]
How long reads are kept
The Sheriff's plate reader policy attached in 2020 defers to the records retention schedule and states no period [10]
Who else sees the reads
The Texas Department of Public Safety plate reader database agreement attached in 2020 lets DPS share the office's reads with other authorized criminal justice agencies [11]

How it happened

  1. Procurement

    Ten mobile plate readers funded

    The Court approves a $97,700 budget transfer "to fund the purchase of 10 Mobile License Plate Reader Systems", 4-0, Court Order 20-0471. [1]

  2. Decision

    The Vigilant service agreement

    The Court approves the Enterprise Service Agreement with Vigilant, 5-0, Court Order 20-0649. The Sheriff's plate reader policy and two Texas DPS documents are attached. [2] [3] [10] [11]

  3. Expansion

    Five more

    Five plate readers from Vigilant Solutions, $50,510.00, for new patrol vehicles, 5-0, Court Order 22-0499. [4] [5]

  4. Expansion

    Five two-camera systems

    Five plate readers from Vigilant Solutions, $51,825, 5-0, Court Order 24-0525. The quote is for five two-camera mobile systems. [6] [7]

  5. Expansion

    Ten from Motorola Solutions

    Ten plate readers from Motorola Solutions, $73,300, through Sourcewell, 5-0, Court Order 25-0055. [8] [9]

A mobile plate reader is a camera on a patrol car that reads every plate it passes and checks it against lists of wanted vehicles. The reads, with a time and a location, are stored and can be searched later. In Denton County the Sheriff’s Office bought its mobile readers from Vigilant Solutions and then from Motorola Solutions, which owns Vigilant. The 2024 Vigilant quote carries a Motorola email address and Motorola’s customer terms.[7]

The 2020 agreement

On 14 July 2020 the Commissioners Court approved a budget transfer of $97,700 “to fund the purchase of 10 Mobile License Plate Reader Systems”.[1] On 1 September 2020 it approved “the Enterprise Service Agreement (ESA) between Vigilant Technologies and Denton County for a Standard License Plate Reader Service Package”, 5-0.[2]

The memo attached to it says the office “currently has three (3) Automated License Plate Readers (ALPR) mobile readers” sending data to Vigilant and is buying “ten (10) new ALPR units from Vigilant that will be mobile”. It says “At this time, DCSO does not have any fixed or transportable units”, and lists the uses as locating stolen vehicles and vehicles associated with wanted individuals, and drug interdiction and human trafficking investigations.[3]

Three more documents attached to the item are scans, summarized here rather than quoted. The Sheriff’s Office plate reader policy carries a 2018 Lexipol copyright. It lets deputies use a reader during any patrol or investigation and says no suspicion is needed first. It sets no retention period of its own, deferring to the records retention schedule, and allows the data to be shared with other law enforcement and prosecutors on written request.[10] A Texas Department of Public Safety user agreement for the state plate reader database lets DPS share the office’s reads with other authorized criminal justice agencies, and sets a minimum of three years for keeping them in the state database unless the office asks for less.[11] A DPS memo says agencies must send all their reads to the state’s repository.[12]

More readers, bought through cooperatives

Each later purchase was a Purchasing item, and each memo says the readers are for new patrol vehicles.

A cooperative is a contract another public body has already put out to bid. The memos say the contracts were competitively bid and cite section 271.102 of the Local Government Code as the authority for buying through them.[4]

That is 30 mobile systems approved over five years, after the three the 2020 memo says were already in use. The record does not say whether any replaced older ones.

What the record does not say

None of the later items attaches a policy, and the retention period for reads the office keeps itself is not stated anywhere we read. The office also has Flock cameras on county poles; see Flock Safety plate readers.

On the map

The community has mapped 639 devices of this type in the county on OpenStreetMap. These are community reports: the vendor and operator of each point are unverified, and none is confirmed to belong to this system. See them on the map →

Street names from reverse geocoding — © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL).

What we do not know

What you can do

Show up

Systems like this one are approved by boards, councils and committees that meet in public. We have confirmed where each of them meets in Denton County and how public comment works there.

How to show up in Denton County →

Protect yourself

Practical steps to shrink your personal data trail. Our guides publish at launch; until then, EFF's Surveillance Self-Defense is the best starting point.

Surveillance Self-Defense →

Sources

  1. 1.
    Denton County Commissioners Court, minutes, 14 July 2020, item 7.C (Budget), Court Order 20-0471 · Meeting record · · accessed
  2. 2.
    Denton County Commissioners Court, minutes, 1 September 2020, item 12.A (Sheriff), Court Order 20-0649, with the Vigilant memo, the Sheriff's Office plate reader policy and the Texas DPS agreements attached · Meeting record · · accessed
  3. 3.
    Agenda placement memorandum, Vigilant Enterprise Service Agreement, attached to item 12.A, 1 September 2020 · Primary document · · accessed
  4. 4.
    Denton County Commissioners Court, minutes, 28 June 2022, item 6.J (Purchasing), Court Order 22-0499 · Meeting record · · accessed
  5. 5.
    Agenda placement memo, five plate readers from Vigilant Solutions, attached to item 6.J, 28 June 2022 · Primary document · · accessed
  6. 6.
    Denton County Commissioners Court, minutes, 9 July 2024, item 6.G (Purchasing), Court Order 24-0525 · Meeting record · · accessed
  7. 7.
    Vigilant Solutions project quotation, five two-camera mobile plate reader systems, attached to item 6.G, 9 July 2024 · Primary document · · accessed
  8. 8.
    Denton County Commissioners Court, minutes, 28 January 2025, item 6.H (Purchasing), Court Order 25-0055 · Meeting record · · accessed
  9. 9.
    Motorola Solutions quote, ten L5M mobile plate reader kits, attached to item 6.H, 28 January 2025 · Primary document · · accessed
  10. 10.
    Denton County Sheriff's Office Policy 426, Automated License Plate Readers (ALPRs), a scan, attached to item 12.A, 1 September 2020 · Primary document · · accessed
  11. 11.
    Texas Department of Public Safety, License Plate Reader Database User Agreement for the Denton County Sheriff's Office, a scan, attached to item 12.A, 1 September 2020 · Primary document · · accessed
  12. 12.
    Texas Department of Public Safety, criteria for automated license plate reader placement, a scan, attached to item 12.A, 1 September 2020 · Primary document · · accessed

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