Stop Austin’s ALPR
AI Surveillance License Plate Reader Program
A permanent extension of the AI license plate surveillance program will be discussed at the June 3 City Council working meeting and will likely go to the full Austin City Council for a vote on June 5.
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.
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.
HOW TO HELP:
Testifying on Thursday is the most effective way to stop this program! (see testifying instructions below)
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
TESTIFY at the Austin City Council General Meeting: Thursday, June 5 (Registration starts June 2 at 10 AM online or by phone (City Clerk 512-974-2210) or by visiting Office of the City Clerk, Suite 2030, City Hall, 301 W. 2nd Street. For this specific meeting, registration closes at noon on June 4)
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
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!