Wins for privacy at Austin City Hall this year:
The NO ALPRs coalition (including HOCTX) has successfully postponed 3 privacy violations…
1) We stopped the ALPR beta-test program from becoming a permanent program. Today, Austin does NOT have an operating street-wide ALPR program!! (scroll down for explanation)
2) In August 2025, we got “Item 33” removed from the 8/28 council meeting agenda.
This was a proposal to spend 400K from the Parks and Recreation Dept budget on ai-assisted mass surveillance cameras at our local parks facilities. The proposal was for 3 years with an initial cost of 400k, with possible extensions up to 5 years with a max cost of $2 million taxpayer dollars. (Scroll down for more details!)
3) Also in August 2025, we got “Item 67” removed from the agenda at the 8/28 council meeting
Item 67 would spend $250k in the middle of a budget crisis to give Austin-based ai company Valkyrie Intelligence access to a tremendous amount of very personal data about Austinites without their consent, ultimately aiming at building a predictive AI modeling tool used to anticipate who in Austin may become homeless in the future.
(Note that we cannot house and provide enough food and medical services to the homeless Austinities we already know about!)
Item 33 breakdown:
Item 33 proposes spending $400k - $2 million taxpayer dollars on ai-assisted mass surveillance cameras at Austin Parks and Recreation facilities (parks and pools).
Cost & Timeline: Initially, $400,000 will come out of the Parks and Recreation department budget for this surveillance program. The program will last 3 years, with a possible extension of 2 years and a max cost of $2 million taxpayer dollars.
City Budget Context: Austin City Council Members are calling for a vote to raise our taxes because of a "budget deficit" yet they just approved an increase to the APD budget of $26 million in the latest general budget. Now, the City is proposing that we spend $2 million on mass surveillance ai-assisted technology for our parks and pools.
Impact on immigrants and POC: We are deeply concerned about the safety of our immigrant and Hispanic community members who are being targeted by ICE. Texas has the highest number of ICE kidnappings in the United States - over 90,000 people taken from their families. Due to the passage of state-level executive orders and legislation,* any data collected by this technology will be shared with ICE, facilitating these racist and unconstitutional mass deportations which are disappearing our neighbors and terrorizing our community.
*such as SB 8 passed in the Texas Legislature during the 2025 regular session
We are also concerned about the impact of mass surveillance on families trying to enjoy our city's park and pools. We are concerned that installing AI-assisted mass surveillance camera will create a hostile environment for youth and communities of color, driving them out of our shared community spaces.
Impact on unhoused folks: In other cities where similar measures have been implemented, it has led to increased criminalization of unhoused folks. Here in Austin, the City "cannot afford" to put homeless Austinities in safe housing, but apparently we can afford to criminalize them and drive them out of our city parks and shared spaces.
The language of Item 33: "Authorize a contract for mobile security cameras and monitoring for the Parks and Recreation Department with LiveView Technologies dba LVT, for an initial term of three years with up to two 1-year extension options in an amount not to exceed $2,000,000. Funding: $400,000 is available in the Operating Budget of the Parks and Recreation Department. Funding for the remaining contract term is contingent upon available funding in future budgets."
Who is LiveView Technologies?
LiveView Technologies (LVT) is a video surveillance company based in Orem, Utah. It was founded by Ryan Porter and Bob Brenner in 2005. The company announced its $50 million Series B round in June 2022. Sorenson Capital, Pelion Ventures, The Larry H. Miller Group, and Lead Edge Capital are funders.
Take Action! Send a BCC email with your thoughts to the following decision makers:
Jesus.Aguirre@austintexas.gov; Jason.Lopez@austintexas.gov; Sharon.Mays@austintexas.gov; guillermo.balderrama@austintexas.gov; Solomon.Ortiz@austintexas.gov; Lizette.Melendez@austintexas.gov; Ben.Leffler@austintexas.gov; carrie.smith@austintexas.gov; Colleen.Pate@austintexas.gov; sara.barge@austintexas.gov; zo.qadri@austintexas.gov; Mike.Siegel@austintexas.gov; marc.duchen@austintexas.gov; district10@austintexas.gov; ryan.alter@austintexas.gov; Jose.Velasquez@austintexas.gov; district4@austintexas.gov; Paige.Ellis@austintexas.gov; Krista.Laine@austintexas.gov; natasha.madison@austintexas.gov; Vanessa.Fuentes@austintexas.gov; TC.Broadnax@austintexas.gov; Genesis.Gavino@austintexas.gov; louisa.brinsmade@austintexas.gov; max.lars@austintexas.gov; kirk.watson@austintexas.gov; Melissa.Beeler@austintexas.gov
Include in the subject line: Item 33 from 8/28 original agenda
Need some tips with what to say? Personal messages, even short ones, make a much bigger impact then pre-written mass emails and petitions.
Tell them if any of these points reflect your concerns:
You do not want to spend $400k from the PARD budget on ai-assisted cameras - you would rather use this money to fix up our parks!
You do not want to spend up to $2 million over 3-5 years on pre-warrant mass surveillance at our parks and pools
Pre-warrant mass surveillance is a violation of 4th amendment of the US constitution
You are concerned that installing these cameras will lead to an increase in criminalization of homeless folks
You are concerned that installing AI-assisted mass surveillance cameras will create a hostile environment for youth and communities of color, driving them out of our shared community spaces.
You are concerned that the governor will force the City of Austin to share this data with ICE, leading to more kidnapping in Austin, or that ICE will get the data directly from the vendor and bypass the city altogether
Still want to help? Find your city council member here and make a call to their office! Find phone numbers here.
URGENT ACTION: Say no to Item 32!
Breakdown of Item 32 on the 9/11 city council agenda (called 67 on 8/28 agenda)
Breakdown of Item 32 (called 67 on 8/28 agenda)
The proposal would spend $250k on a “research-phase step of a process” to essentially asks Council to fund a research project exploring what Austin could do with this vendor’s services, and if we want to, how to collect the right data for that project to be successful. a program piloted by Los Angeles (who is working with a nonprofit to build their predictive model)
The predictive model being suggested is emulating Los Angeles’s prevention program (The Homelessness Prevention Unit: A Proactive Approach to Preventing Homelessness in Los Angeles County), the results of which will not be available until 2027. Los Angeles is working with California Policy Lab, a nonprofit housed at UC, who are public about their values and expertise in privacy protecting data-sharing and focused on supporting local governments with progressive programs.
Austin is proposing to give our sensitive data to Valkyrie Intelligence, a company with deep ties to the military industrial complex, who has never had a contract with a municipality before. Their privacy policy explicitly acknowledges that they may disclose personal information to public authorities for national security or law enforcement purposes. Their sister product Andromeda comes out of the CEO's work with U.S defense/intelligence agencies, alongside other corporations like Palantir.
Valkyrie claims the data they collect doesn’t feed into their own systems, but the company has a troubling lack of expertise in their privacy policies. Their website states that Valkyrie “complies with the EU-US Privacy Shield Framework,” a defunct policy that was invalidated in 2020. (They also claim they rely on a federal security standard, NIST standard 800171 revision 2, however the NIST standard doesn’t cover most of the data at issue and is more related to security protocols than privacy policies.)
Turning over sensitive data records without our consent and integrating them into a large database of personal profiles (LA's model relies on ER visits, crisis care, substance use, arrests, other individual records) handled by a for-profit corporation is irresponsible and violates our individual privacy rights. To be clear: This is not an opt-in program, this data would be collected and profiled without the consent of our residents.
HOCTX wonders why the city can’t just use $250k to pay for housing for our folks already sleeping on the streets.
Take Action! Send a BCC email with your thoughts to the following decision makers:
Full list of emails for Item 33 from 8/28 original agenda: Jesus.Aguirre@austintexas.gov; Jason.Lopez@austintexas.gov; Sharon.Mays@austintexas.gov; guillermo.balderrama@austintexas.gov; Solomon.Ortiz@austintexas.gov; Lizette.Melendez@austintexas.gov; Ben.Leffler@austintexas.gov; carrie.smith@austintexas.gov; Colleen.Pate@austintexas.gov; sara.barge@austintexas.gov; zo.qadri@austintexas.gov; Mike.Siegel@austintexas.gov; marc.duchen@austintexas.gov; district10@austintexas.gov; ryan.alter@austintexas.gov; Jose.Velasquez@austintexas.gov; district4@austintexas.gov; Paige.Ellis@austintexas.gov; Krista.Laine@austintexas.gov; natasha.madison@austintexas.gov; Vanessa.Fuentes@austintexas.gov; TC.Broadnax@austintexas.gov; Genesis.Gavino@austintexas.gov; louisa.brinsmade@austintexas.gov; max.lars@austintexas.gov; kirk.watson@austintexas.gov; Melissa.Beeler@austintexas.gov
Include in the subject line: Item 67 from 8/28 original agenda
Need help with what to say? Speak from the heart! Personal messages, even short ones, make a much bigger impact then pre-written mass emails and petitions.
Feel free to tell them:
You do not consent to your data being used to anticipate whether you may become homeless in the future
You would prefer they spend the $250k on directly housing the homeless Austinities we already know about
You do not want to give taxpayer money to an ai tech company with ties to the military industrial complex
Even if they came up with a shared privacy agreement with the vendor, the vendor cannot totally guarantee that our highly sensitive data will never be leaked or hacked by bad actors
Maybe they should just open up a google form for Austinities to request aid with their rent, if they are worried about possibly-future-homeless Austinities
We could just wait until 2027 to see how successful the Los Angeles model is before we pour money into a research project to not actually solve a problem
Still want to help? Find your city council member here and make a call to their office! Find phone numbers here.
Stop ALPRs in Central TX
AI Surveillance Programs are a honeypot of data for bad actors
+ a violation of the 4th Amendment to the United States Constitution
ALPRs are high-speed, computer-controlled camera systems that are typically mounted on street poles, streetlights, highway overpasses, mobile trailers, or attached to police squad cars. ALPRs automatically capture all license plate numbers that come into view, along with the location, date, and time. The data, which includes photographs of the vehicle and sometimes its driver and passengers, is then uploaded to a central server. Learn more about ALPR AI Surveillance Programs.
- RESIST RECAP -
A permanent extension of the AI license plate surveillance program was discussed at the June 3 Austin City Council working meeting. Due to public outcry from Austin residents and 30 coalition partners, including Hands Off Central TX, the Austin City Manager pulled to item from the agenda and it was not brought to a Council vote.
ATX City Council approved the pilot program for the ALPR used by APD in March 2024. The City Auditor presented results from the pilot at the May 19 meeting of the city Audit and Finance Committee. Read about the Audit here.
HOW TO HELP:
Call your city council member’s office list your concerns - tell them you do NOT want to be tracked while you drive through your city and that you do not believe the data will be forever bulletproof from ICE & the state of TX. Find your Austin City Council Member
Email city council and demand that they protect Austinites by ending the ALPR surveillance program
Testify in Defense of Democracy in Austin
Find your Austin City Council Member. If you need language interpretation services at City Hall, including American Sign Language, you must email your request to City.Clerk@austintexas.gov 48 hours in advance of the meeting.
Where each ATX Council Member stands on ALPRs (as of March 2025)
To protect Austinites, City Council should vote “no” on making the ALPR program permanent.
Email everyone @ once:
Kirk.Watson@austintexas.gov; jose.Velásquez@austintexas.gov; marc.duchen@austintexas.gov; Ramey.Ko@austintexas.gov; Jason.Lopez@austintexas.gov; vanessa.fuentes@austintexas.gov; ryan.alter@austintexas.gov; Colleen.Pate@austintexas.gov; max.lars@austintexas.gov; Sofia.Morales@austintexas.gov; marcduchen@gmail.com; Sharon.Mays@austintexas.gov; sara.barge@austintexas.gov; Mike.Siegel@austintexas.gov; Ashley.Fisher@austintexas.gov; Krista.Laine@austintexas.gov; carrie.smith@austintexas.gov; laura.yeager@austintexas.gov; district10@austintexas.gov; natasha.madison@austintexas.gov; Paige.Ellis@austintexas.gov; Ed.Scruggs@austintexas.gov; guillermo.balderrama@austintexas.gov; Lizette.Melendez@austintexas.gov; Ben.Leffler@austintexas.gov; Michael.McGill@austintexas.gov; monique.cooper@austintexas.gov; Solomon.Ortiz@austintexas.gov
Vanessa Fuentes voted yes on the temporary extension. Member of the City Audit and Finance Committee. Ask her to protect our privacy, our first amendment rights, women seeking healthcare access, our city’s budget, and the City of Austin’s right to self-rule. ATX City Council gives us rhetoric about being a sanctuary city - this is the moment to prove it.
Contact her office: 512-978-2102 Vanessa.Fuentes@austintexas.gov
Chief of Staff Jason Lopez: 512-978-2165 Jason.Lopez@austintexas.gov
Policy Director Sofia Morales: 512-978-2148 Sofia.Morales@austintexas.gov
Natasha Harper-Madison voted no on the temporary extension. Make sure to thank her for standing up for the safety of women & communities of the global majority!
Contact her office: 512-978-2101 natasha.madison@austintexas.gov
Chief of Staff Sharon Mays: 512-978-2136 Sharon.Mays@austintexas.gov
Krista Laine voted yes on the temporary extension. Ask her to protect our privacy, our first amendment rights, women seeking healthcare access, our city’s budget, and the City of Austin’s right to self-rule.
Contact her office: 512-978-2106 Krista.Laine@austintexas.gov
Chief of Staff Ashley Fisher: Ashley.Fisher@austintexas.gov
Paige Ellis voted yes on the temporary extension. Ask her to protect our privacy, our first amendment rights, women seeking healthcare access, our city’s budget, and the City of Austin’s right to self-rule.
Contact her office: 512-978-2108 Paige.Ellis@austintexas.gov
Chief of Staff: guillermo.balderrama@austintexas.gov
Policy Staffer Ed Scruggs: Ed.Scruggs@austintexas.gov
Chito Vela voted yes on the temporary extension but advocated for guardrails to protect the data. APD utterly failed to implement previous safeguards. The City’s own audit showed none of them were implemented or written into the contract. The only safe data is data we never collect! Ask him to protect his already over-policed district, protect our data, protect residents from ICE, and protect women and labor communities by not extending this program under the current Federal administration.
Contact Senior Policy Advisor (& immigration lawyer) Ramey Ko: Ramey.Ko@austintexas.gov
Chief of Staff Solomon Ortiz: Solomon.Ortiz@austintexas.gov
José Velásquez voted yes on the temporary extension. Ask him to protect our data by not collecting it, protect residents from ICE, and protect women and labor communities by not extending this program under the current Federal administration. (Member of the City Audit and Finance Committee)
Contact his office: 512-978-2103 Jose.Velásquez@austintexas.gov
Chief of Staff Lizette Melendez: 512-978-2151 Lizette.Melendez@austintexas.gov
Civil Rights Staffer: 512-978-2150 monique.cooper@austintexas.gov
Ryan Alter voted yes on the temporary extension. Member of the City Audit and Finance Committee. Ask him to protect our data by not collecting it, to protect our budget by not spending on a categorically ineffective program, and protect our residents by tabling this program during the current Federal administration.
512-978-2105 ryan.alter@austintexas.gov Chief of staff: Ben.Leffler@austintexas.gov
policy: Michael.McGill@austintexas.gov
Marc Duchen voted yes on the temporary extension. Member of the City Audit and Finance Committee. Ask him to cut this ineffective program, which costs the city over 100K per year for no significant value - especially in light of the $33 million budget shortfall our city is facing in 2026.
Contact his office : 512-978-2110 marc.duchen@austintexas.gov district10@austintexas.gov
Chief of Staff Carrie Smith: carrie.smith@austintexas.gov
Senior Policy Staffer: Laura Yeager laura.yeager@austintexas.gov
Mayor Watson voted yes on the temporary extension. He is Chair of the City Audit and Finance Committee. Ask him to protect our residents by tabling this program under the current Federal administration. The GOP-controlled Texas Legislature pushed a grab-bag of home rule violations this legislative season trying to supersede the authority of Council, and APD may be deputized by ICE in the future.
Contact his office: 512-978-2100
Chief of Staff Colleen Pate: Colleen.Pate@austintexas.gov
Equity and Civil Rights Staffer Max Lars: max.lars@austintexas.gov
Mike Siegel voted no on the temporary extension.
Contact his office 512-978-2107 Mike.Siegel@austintexas.gov
Zohaib "Zo" Qadri voted no on the temporary extension.
Contact his Chief of Staff Sara Barge: 512-978-2109 sara.barge@austintexas.gov
1. ALPRs Violate the Right to Privacy
ALPRs track and store the movements of every vehicle they scan—without a warrant, without suspicion, and without consent. This is mass surveillance, not targeted policing.
The ALCU has released documents showing that location records being kept on tens of millions of innocent Americans in 38 states and Washington, DC. The ACLU won a lawsuit in the Supreme Court of California giving the puiblic access to ALPR records that the police were trying to keep secret, and in Los Angeles, they discovered that over 99% of scanned plates belonged to people not suspected of any crime.
ALPRs collect millions of data points on innocent residents and visitors, creating detailed maps of where we live, worship, and work without a warrant or any active investigation.
2. ALPR Data Has Been Misused and Shared Without Oversight
Once data is collected, it can be stored for years and shared with hundreds of agencies—and sometimes even private companies. If ICE asks for ALPR data, will APD share it with them? Will the state force them to share the data at a later date? Can the Attorney General of TX or the USA get the data? This could put immigrant communities at serious risk.
Example: A 2020 investigation revealed that ICE accessed ALPR data from cities that had declared themselves sanctuary jurisdictions, undermining local policies.
Half Moon Bay, San Francisco, Oakland and Delano in California, Michigan City, Indiana; Suffolk County, New York; Denver, Colorado; Pima County, Arizona; and more are not extending their ALPR contract due to concerns about ICE using the data to locate immigrants for deportation. Read about it.
Data leak or data hack is impossible to prevent - the only safe data is data that is never collected. Will terrorist groups like Patriot Front, Proud Boys, the KKK be able to get their hands on the data at some point?
3. False Matches Lead to Dangerous Mistakes
ALPRs aren’t foolproof. They make errors. Estimates are around 10% of all cases. In a high-stakes policing environment, mistakes put lives at risk.
Ex: In Aurora, Colorado, a Black family—including young children—was held at gunpoint after an ALPR flagged their car as stolen. It was a mistake, and the city was required to pay the family 1.9 million in damages. Read the Article from BBC. Read about the City of Austin’s $33 million budget shortfall.
False matches disproportionately affect communities of color, where policing is already more aggressive. Read about it.
4. ALPRs Chills Free Speech and Civic Engagement
When people know they’re being watched, they change their behavior. That’s not safety—it’s suppression. With current attacks on free speech by the Trump administration and threats to people speaking out against their policies, the risk of innocent people being targeted through misuse of this surveillance information is too great.
Studies have shown surveillance tools deter attendance at political protests, religious events, and community organizing.
In this political climate, that’s dangerous. People shouldn’t have to choose between their rights and their safety.
5. ALPRs Are a Bad Investment with Little Return
If this technology actually prevented violent crime, we might be having a different conversation. But it doesn’t.
Additionally, the audit report cites a number of serious and minor crimes that have been solved with the help of ALPRs, but we do not know if these crimes would have been solved without ALPR data.
In many cities, over 90% of ALPR alerts are for minor issues like expired registrations—not serious crimes.
Meanwhile, data storage and system maintenance cost cities hundreds of thousands of dollars annually—money that could go to mental health response, community programs, or actual crime prevention.
6. Local Communities Have the Power to Say No
We don’t have to wait for the state or federal government to act. Our city has the authority—and the responsibility—to protect residents’ civil rights.
Cities like San Francisco, Oakland, and Berkeley, California have already restricted or banned ALPR use due to civil rights concerns.
Let’s be proactive, not reactive, in defending the rights of our neighbors.
Surveillance doesn't equal safety. It creates a culture of suspicion, not trust. Let's invest in real community-based solutions—not tools that watch everyone, all the time. Say no to ALPRs!