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ORWELL INDEX

Who runs license plate readers in Fort Bend County?

On the map

0
Verified by us
729
Community-reported

Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL), including community reporting via the DeFlock project. Tiles by OpenFreeMap.

What we do not know

Fort Bend County Sheriff

  • How many of the 407 licenses are active, and in which vehicles.
  • How long Axon keeps the county's plate reads, and whether that period was set by the county.
  • Which agencies can search the reads, and whether they are shared with Flock Safety's network.
  • What hot lists are loaded, who can add a plate to one, and whether searches are audited.
  • Who can watch the in-car livestreams, and when.
  • What the $2.25 million March 2022 amendment bought.

Fort Bend County Sheriff, Constable Precinct 4 and Fort Bend County District Attorney

  • Where the Sheriff's 31 Falcon cameras stand.
  • What the 2021 data-sharing agreement allows, and in which direction data flows.
  • What the 2021 safety study was and what it found.
  • Which agencies inside and outside Texas can search the county's reads, and whose reads county offices can search.
  • Whether the county has a written plate reader use and audit policy, and whether the Commissioners Court has seen one.
  • Who uses the cameras installed under the county's right-of-way permits.
  • How many cameras each utility district bought, where they are, and what the district boards were told.
  • What Environmental Health uses plate readers for.

What license plate readers are

An automated license plate reader photographs every passing vehicle and records the plate, the time and the place. It does not watch suspects. It logs everyone, and the record is usually kept on a vendor’s servers.

How they work, why agencies buy them, and every county we have documented →

What you can do

Civic action

Show up

This technology is bought and renewed by boards, councils and committees that meet in public. We have confirmed where each of them meets in Fort Bend County and how public comment works there.

How to show up in Fort Bend County →

Personal protection

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 ↗