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Tarrant County Sheriff | Flock Safety flowdown agreement

The only time a license plate reader vendor reaches the Tarrant County Commissioners Court in six and a half years of its record. It arrives on the consent agenda, with no price, and is approved without discussion.

At a glance

The decision
Court Order 137852, 5 April 2022, inside the consent agenda block approved as Court Order 137800. That block was moved by Commissioner Precinct 4 J.D. Johnson, seconded by Commissioner Precinct 1 Roy Brooks, and carried 5-0 [1] [2]
The cost
Not stated. The item reads "Per Contract Terms" in the agenda and in the minutes [1] [2]
What a flowdown agreement is
An agreement that extends terms negotiated elsewhere to a government agency. The county record does not name the underlying contract or say who holds it [1] [2]
How many cameras, and where
Not stated in any document the Commissioners Court published [2]
How long a plate read is kept
Not stated in any document the Commissioners Court published [2]
Was it discussed?
No. Three items were pulled from the consent agenda that morning and this was not one of them. The minutes record no debate on it [2]

How it happened

  1. Decision

    Court Order 137852

    The Commissioners Court approves a Flock Safety Flowdown Government Agency Agreement for the Sheriff's Office with Flock Group, Inc., for "Per Contract Terms". It is item 15 under Purchasing and it is marked for the consent agenda, so it is approved in the block rather than on its own vote. At the same meeting the Court re-awards the Sheriff's covert surveillance camera contract. [1] [2]

  2. Coverage

    A sharing list names the office

    The EFF Atlas of Surveillance records the Tarrant County Sheriff's Office as a Flock Safety plate reader operator, and the Tarrant Regional Water District Law Enforcement Division alongside it, citing an agency data-sharing list obtained through a records request and posted publicly. Nobody on this project has read that document, so it is carried here as another outlet's account rather than as our finding. [3]

On the morning of 5 April 2022 the Tarrant County Commissioners Court approved its consent agenda in a single motion. The posted agenda had marked thirty-five items for that block. One of them, the fifteenth under the Purchasing heading, was Court Order 137852: “Approval of Flock Safety Flowdown Government Agency Agreement - Sheriff’s Office - Flock Group, Inc. - Per Contract Terms”.

That sentence is the entire public record of how Tarrant County’s sheriff reached a camera network.

Items marked with a double asterisk on a Tarrant County agenda are grouped into a consent block. The Court votes the block through with one motion, and the agenda itself explains the arrangement: “Public hearing and review are held collectively unless opposition is presented, in which case the contested item will be heard separately”.

The Court’s announcements that morning named every item that came out of the block: two removed from consent, three held, and one deferred until after the closed session. This was none of them. It had no separate vote, no separate discussion, and nobody spoke to it.

This is not an irregular way to pass an item. It is how most county business moves, in Tarrant County and everywhere else, and it exists because a court that debated every routine contract would never finish. What it means in practice is that an agreement putting a sheriff’s office onto a commercial camera network went through the same procedure as the item directly above it on the same list, an annual contract for mechanical and plumbing services, and left less of a record: the plumbing contract carries a figure, $39,422.00, and this one does not.

What a flowdown agreement is

A flowdown agreement extends terms that were negotiated somewhere else to a new party. Nothing in the county’s record says which contract this one flows down from, who negotiated it, what it obliges either side to do, or what it costs. The price in both the agenda and the minutes is the phrase “Per Contract Terms”.

Where else the county mentions plate readers

It does not. Across 552 agendas and sets of minutes covering every Commissioners Court meeting from January 2019 to August 2025, no item mentions a license plate reader, automated license plate recognition or plate recognition of any kind. The only appearance of the words “license plate” is a yearly housekeeping item authorizing registration plates for county vehicles.

Volunteers have mapped 1,195 plate readers inside the county line. Almost all of them belong to cities, school district and university police, hospital police, a water district, or to operators nobody has recorded. One line on one consent agenda is what the county government itself put on the record.

On the map

The community has mapped 1195 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 Tarrant County and how public comment works there.

How to show up in Tarrant 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.
    Tarrant County Commissioners Court, agenda, 5 April 2022, item IX.H.15, "Approval of Flock Safety Flowdown Government Agency Agreement - Sheriff's Office - Flock Group, Inc. - Per Contract Terms" · Meeting record · · accessed
  2. 2.
    Tarrant County Commissioners Court, minutes, 5 April 2022, carrying Court Order 137852 and the consent agenda approval as Court Order 137800 · Meeting record · · accessed
  3. 3.
    EFF Atlas of Surveillance, entry AOS015892, Tarrant County Sheriff's Office, automated license plate readers, citing an agency sharing list obtained in July 2025 · Dataset · · accessed

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