Galveston County Sheriff | Trackers and pole cameras
The Sheriff's Office has renewed a covert tracking subscription every year since 2015 and runs two pole cameras on a cloud video service. Both are small, both are cheap, and both pass on the consent agenda without a word.
At a glance
- Covert trackers under contract
- Three stealth tracking devices and three tracking phone applications, $3,780 for the year to 30 September 2025 [3]
- First in the county record
- 27 October 2015: renewal of access to the CovertTrack mapping product with five second updates [1]
- Pole cameras under contract
- Two, on a cloud video management subscription costing $1,920 a year, with thirty day storage, pan, tilt and zoom, and clips archived beyond the thirty days once saved [4]
- Pole camera connectivity
- A Verizon Wireless data line, renewed by the Court most years since September 2016 [5]
- Where they are
- Not stated in any county record we read [6]
- Under what authority a tracker is placed
- Not addressed in the county record. The Court approves the subscription, not the use [6]
How it happened
- Procurement
The tracking subscription begins in the record
The Court approved renewal of unlimited five second updates and access to the CovertTrack mapping product. Renewals follow in 2019, 2020, 2021, 2023, 2024 and through the Auto Crimes Task Force grant budget in between. [1]
- Procurement
What the subscription covers
A renewal item filed as a complete review of the CovertTrack contract describes it as a surveillance phone application for audio, visual and GPS devices. [2]
- Procurement
Pole camera storage, on consent
Consent item 32 approved an agreement with Cowboy Concealments and Tracking for a cloud based video management system subscription for pole camera storage. It passed inside a block running from item 1 to item 67. [7]
- Procurement
Both renewed in one block
Consent items 32 and 34 renewed the Cowboy Concealments video management system and the CovertTrack subscription on the same day, inside a block of sixty items. The CovertTrack quote lists three stealth devices and three tracking phone applications by serial number. [3] [4] [8]
Two of Galveston County’s surveillance systems are small enough to be easy to miss, and both have been running for the better part of a decade.
The trackers
The Sheriff’s Office has held a subscription with CovertTrack Group since at least October 2015, when the Court renewed access to the company’s mapping product with five second position updates. A 2020 renewal item describes the contract as covering a surveillance phone application for audio, visual and GPS devices. The subscription is also a line in the Auto Crimes Task Force’s grant budget, at $3,000 a year, alongside the plate reader contract.
The most recent quote in the record covers three stealth tracking devices and three tracking phone applications for the year to 30 September 2025, $3,780 in total. Each device and application is listed by its own serial number.
Nothing in the county record says under what legal process a tracker is attached to anything. The Court approves the subscription; the use of it is not a matter that comes back to the Court.
The pole cameras
In October 2023 the Court approved an agreement with Cowboy Concealments and Tracking for a cloud based video management system for pole camera storage, and it has renewed it since. The quote describes a subscription storing all video recordings for thirty days, with pan, tilt and zoom, with clips reviewable remotely by desktop or app, and with archived clips kept “indefinitely (not capped at 30 days)”. Two cameras, $1,920 a year.
The county has had at least one pole camera longer than that. A Verizon Wireless data line for a pole camera has been renewed by the Court most years since September 2016.
No county record we read says where any of these cameras are.
Both on consent
Every renewal of either system that we found passed inside the consent block. On 12 November 2024 the Cowboy Concealments renewal was item 32 and the CovertTrack renewal item 34, in a block running from item 1 to item 60 approved in a single motion with two exceptions, neither of them these.
That is the ordinary way this county buys surveillance, and it is worth noticing rather than condemning: a consent agenda exists so that a five-member court can get through sixty pieces of routine business in a morning. The question a resident can fairly put is whether a covert tracking subscription and a set of pole cameras belong in the same category as the accounts payable list.
What a resident can ask for
The fourth request on this county’s list asks Purchasing for the Cowboy Concealments agreement and for any record identifying the number and general placement of the pole cameras it serves.
What we do not know
- Where the two pole cameras stand and under what authority they are placed.
- How many covert trackers the office has used, and under what legal process.
- How long pole camera footage is kept once a clip is archived.
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 Galveston County and how public comment works there.
How to show up in Galveston 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. Galveston County Commissioners Court, renewal of CovertTrack mapping access, 27 October 2015 · Meeting record · · accessed
- 2. Galveston County Commissioners Court, CovertTrack contract renewal review, 6 April 2020 · Meeting record · · accessed
- 3. CovertTrack Group estimate AGMTCT003740, for the year to 30 September 2025 · Meeting record · · accessed
- 4. Cowboy Concealments and Trackers quote 1884, cloud video management renewal to October 2025 · Meeting record · · accessed
- 5. Galveston County Commissioners Court, renewal of the Verizon Wireless data line for a pole camera, 27 September 2016 · Meeting record · · accessed
- 6.
- 7. Galveston County Commissioners Court, minutes, 30 October 2023, consent item 32 · Meeting record · · accessed
- 8. Galveston County Commissioners Court, minutes, 12 November 2024, consent items 32 and 34 · Meeting record · · accessed
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