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ORWELL INDEX

Who runs license plate readers in Harris County?

On the map

0
Verified by us
4076
Community-reported

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

What we do not know

Harris County Sheriff and Constable Precinct 4

  • How many cameras these six agreements reach. No item names a number, and the county record we read holds no running total.
  • What the agreements permit. The item titles describe access to real-time notifications and data; retention, who may run a search, whether searches are logged, and whether data leaves the county are not in them.
  • How many Harris County special districts operate plate readers. Six agreements reached the Court. The county has many more districts than that.
  • Whether each district's own board took the camera purchase as a posted agenda item, which is a question for the district rather than for the county.

Harris County Sheriff

  • How many plate readers and sound detection devices the contract covers. No item in five years of agendas states a number.
  • What the $2,000,000 amendment would have bought, and what happened to the need it was meant to meet after the Court took no action on it.
  • What "available for use County-wide" changed. Who could use the contract before July 2026, and who can now.
  • Whether any Harris County agency holds a written plate reader policy, covering retention, who may run a search, and whether searches are logged.

Harris County Sheriff

  • What the subscription actually reaches. The items say "license plate recognition software" and never describe the data behind it.
  • Which way data moves through the LEARN connection, and who can query county plate reads once they are there.
  • Why this purchase has been a sole source exemption from competitive bidding every year since at least 2021. The written justification is a document the Purchasing Agent holds.
  • When the subscription began. The first item in the readable record, in September 2021, is already a renewal.

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 Harris County and how public comment works there.

How to show up in Harris 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 ↗