League City Voters Decide Nov. 3 on Police Flock Cameras

Voters in League City, a Houston-area suburb of about 120,000 people, will decide Nov. 3 whether police should keep using the city’s 55 Flock license plate cameras, the Texas Tribune reported Oct. 30.

The ballot item, Proposition A, is nonbinding. But Mayor Nick Long said the City Council passed a resolution in mid-October pledging to act on the result, according to the Tribune. Fox 26 Houston reported Oct. 19 that Long said the cameras would be bagged or disabled within 72 hours of the vote being certified.

Long and police say the cameras help investigators identify vehicles tied to crimes and find missing people. Fox 26 reported that, per the police department, the cameras do not use facial recognition, data is kept 30 days, and each search needs a case number. Critics raise privacy concerns about recording every passing vehicle. The Tribune reports that five Houston-area police departments have arrested officers or opened investigations over alleged misuse of Flock data.

According to the Tribune, only six League City officers have access to the system and more than 400 agencies can access its data. Mayoral candidate Tom Crews, Long’s challenger, told Fox 26 that public privacy and public safety are not competing goals and the city needs to do both.