Item #8 Draft Recommendation - Opposition to Austin’s Automated License Plate Reader Surveillance — original pdf

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COMMISSION FOR WOMEN RECOMMENDATION 20250604-008 Date: June 4, 2025 Subject: Program Motioned By: Seconded By: Opposition to Austin’s Automated License Plate Reader Surveillance Recommendation The City of Austin Commission for Women urges City Council to discontinue Austin’s automated (AI) license plate reader (ALPR) surveillance program . Description of Recommendation to Council The trial period for the Austin Police Department’s use of automated (AI) license plate readers is ending, and now Council must decide whether to make the program permanent. It is the recommendation of the City of Austin Commission for Women that Council discontinue the automated license plate reader surveillance program. Rationale: From March through December of 2024, automated license plate readers (ALPR) scanned more than 75 million license plates across Austin as part of an APD trial program. While council’s approved policy stated that license plate data must be deleted within one week, that has not been the reality of the program. According to a recent audit, contractor Flock Safety retains "non-exclusive, worldwide, perpetual, royalty-free right and license" to indefinitely use license plate information scanned across Austin.1 1 https://communityimpact.com/austin/south-central-austin/government/2025/05/20/75m-license-plates- scanned-under-rebooted-austin-police-program-audit-reveals-successes-concerns/ What this means is that the data connected to the millions of license plates scanned under this program is not protected. This program puts the data of Austinites at risk. Consider what Texas State Senator Sarah Eckhardt, who represents much of Austin, said on the floor of the Texas Senate just last week during the hearing for HB521: “We’re in the process of creating a number of lists, and this is of great concern. We have a number of bills this session… that create lists of people as if we are preparing to shoot fish in a barrel… We have lists of individuals who are public servants who are trying to assist people to vote. We have lists of judges who are using their discretion to release people on bail. We have lists of prosecutors who are – within their discretion – choosing not to pursue cases. We have lists of vendors who sell books that are disfavored. We are entering into a time period of surveillance and lists and disfavored groups by statute… We had a priority in this legislative session to look at the scourges of communism. That was one of the scourges of communism. Lists of public servants that were disfavored, lists of judges that were disfavored, lists of books that were disfavored, lists of people who were living in ways that were disfavored, lists of religious practices that were disfavored. This is going to be the legacy of this legislature?” The City of Austin is deeply familiar with the realities of pre-emption by the State. Under the current ALPR program, we cannot promise our residents that their license plate data will be safe from the lists the State is creating that Senator Eckhardt mentions. The State of Texas has already expressed explicit interest in and/or made efforts to track those who help pregnant people access abortions, those who have changed their gender marker, and those who are pursuing citizenship. All of these groups are susceptible to being tracked by the State using the data collected under Austin’s ALPR program. WIRED reported back in 2022 on the ways in which ALPR programs can specifically be used to track those who travel for abortions or who provide abortion care.2 On May 29, 2025 it was reported that the Johnson County Sheriff's Office in 2 https://www.wired.com/story/license-plate-reader-alpr-surveillance-abortion/ Texas used ALPR cameras from the same company that Austin uses, Flock, to track a woman who had a self-managed abortion as she drove from Texas across the country.3 There remains a risk that the State figures out a way to compel local police forces to act as ICE agents (see: SB8 nearing passage as of this writing on May 29), helping carry out the current presidential administration’s goal of mass deportations. According to a May 2025 report by the Global Women’s Institute: “The U.S. Administration’s approach to immigration policies disproportionately exposes women and girl migrants — especially those at the intersection of multiple marginalized identities, including women of color, Black and Indigenous women, and women with disabilities— to gender-based violence (GBV). “Research consistently shows that GBV intensifies when community safeguards are dismantled. ICE raids on previously protected spaces, including churches, schools, and sanctuary cities, along with the forcible separation of families, have eroded the protective structures within migrant communities. This breakdown disrupts access to critical, life-saving services such as specialized healthcare, legal protection, and mechanisms for reporting abuse. The situation is compounded by the Trump Administration’s rollback of domestic refugee support services leaving women without critical GBV response services.”4 The Commission for Women is concerned about all the ways that the ALPR program could be used to surveil and expose some of our most vulnerable populations – those seeking abortions or helping others to do so, trans women, and migrant women, for starters. We are concerned with the way this type of AI surveillance will render previously protected spaces unsafe for our residents. This 3 https://www.404media.co/a-texas-cop-searched-license-plate-cameras-nationwide-for-a-woman-who- got-an-abortion/ 4 https://blogs.gwu.edu/globalwomensinstitute/2025/05/12/u-s-mass-deportations-impact-on-women-and- girls-experiences-of-gender-based-violence/ Commission urges Council to discontinue the ALPR surveillance program in order to protect the privacy of our most vulnerable residents. Vote For: Against: Abstain: Absent: Attest: [Staff or board member can sign]