Williamson County Sheriff | Cameras in county buildings and the jail
One integrator, one state purchasing contract and a decade of proposals, from a single camera in a tax office annex at $1,844 to a jail camera upgrade at $295,771. No item in the series says how many cameras the county now has or how long it keeps the video.
At a glance
- Who installs them
- Knight Security Systems, on Texas Department of Information Resources cooperative contracts, in every year of the record we read. Servers for the jail system came from Ingram Technologies [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]
- The largest single purchase
- $295,771.57, a jail security camera upgrade approved 8 November 2022 [5]
- The smallest
- $1,844.76, one camera in the Cedar Park Tax Office Annex, approved 24 August 2021 [3]
- In-car and body cameras
- Bought from resellers on state contracts: $77,451.52 of body cameras and $97,440 of countywide licenses in December 2021, thirty more body cameras at $52,216.32 in June 2022, and $270,009.75 of in-car camera systems for law enforcement vehicles in January 2025 [4] [7] [8]
- How many cameras the county operates
- No item in the series gives a running total, and no total appears anywhere in the record [9]
- How long the video is kept
- Not stated for the buildings, the jail, the body cameras or the in-car cameras [9]
How it happened
- Procurement
The Justice Center system
A service contract with Knight Security Systems on a state cooperative contract, which the maintenance option approved four weeks later identifies as the Justice Center cameras and video management system. The same meeting accepted a donation of nine body cameras from a city police department to a Constable, on condition the county's technology department found them compatible. [1]
- Deployment
The North Campus
Access card readers and video surveillance systems for the North Campus project, $121,671.26. [2]
- Expansion
The shooting range, and body cameras countywide
Eight cameras at the Sheriff's shooting range, $51,004.32 with $5,878.92 a year after that. The same meeting bought $77,451.52 of body cameras and $97,440 of countywide license and system support. [4]
- Expansion
The jail upgrade
A jail security camera upgrade for $295,771.57, the largest camera figure in the record, on the same state cooperative contract as everything before it. A week later the Children's Advocacy Center got $48,095.13 of cameras. [5] [6]
- Procurement
In-car cameras
In-car camera systems for county law enforcement vehicles from a reseller, $270,009.75, on a state cooperative contract. [8]
The county’s own cameras are the least dramatic part of this record and the largest by count. They arrive as proposals, two or three a year, from the same integrator on the same state purchasing contract, and each one is small enough to pass without comment.
The series
The Justice Center’s cameras and video management system in 2017. Access card readers and video surveillance for the North Campus that November, $121,671.26. A countywide service agreement covering the camera systems in 2019, $42,165.48. Video surveillance and intrusion detection that October, $58,313.90. The Inner Loop Annex in 2020, $10,574.60. Four more at the Historic Courthouse in August 2021, $30,211.56, and one in the Cedar Park Tax Office Annex that same month, $1,844.76. One at the Juvenile Justice Center in September 2021. Eight at the Lott Center that November. Eight at the Sheriff’s shooting range in December, $56,883.24 in the first year. Jail video management maintenance in January 2022. The Liberty Hill adult probation office that February. The jail upgrade in November 2022, $295,771.57. The Children’s Advocacy Center a week later, $48,095.13.
Alongside them, the cameras the county’s officers wear and drive: $174,891 of body cameras and countywide licenses in December 2021, thirty more in June 2022, and $270,009.75 of in-car camera systems in January 2025.
How they are bought
Almost all of it goes through Texas Department of Information Resources cooperative contracts. Under Texas law, buying through a cooperative satisfies the requirement to seek competitive bids, so none of these purchases passed through the moment where a bid notice would have described the equipment in public. That is legal, ordinary and used by every county this project has read.
What nobody ever says
Not one item in a decade gives a running total. After fourteen proposals a reader still cannot say how many cameras the county operates, which spaces they cover, who can watch them live, or how long the recordings are kept. Each purchase was disclosed. The system they add up to was not.
What we do not know
- How many cameras the county operates in its buildings and the jail.
- How long that video is kept, and how long body camera and in-car camera video is kept.
- Who can watch the county's building cameras live, and from where.
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 Williamson County and how public comment works there.
How to show up in Williamson 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. Williamson County Commissioners Court, minutes, 2 May 2017, item 29 · Meeting record · · accessed
- 2. Williamson County Commissioners Court, minutes, 21 November 2017, item 38 · Meeting record · · accessed
- 3. Williamson County Commissioners Court, minutes, 24 August 2021, item 22 · Meeting record · · accessed
- 4. Williamson County Commissioners Court, minutes, 21 December 2021, items 28, 29 and 32 · Meeting record · · accessed
- 5. Williamson County Commissioners Court, minutes, 8 November 2022, item 36 · Meeting record · · accessed
- 6. Williamson County Commissioners Court, minutes, 15 November 2022, item 17 · Meeting record · · accessed
- 7. Williamson County Commissioners Court, minutes, 28 June 2022, item 18 · Meeting record · · accessed
- 8. Williamson County Commissioners Court, minutes, 14 January 2025, item 26 · Meeting record · · accessed
- 9.
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