Dallas Police Use 600 Surveillance Cameras to Track License Plates Citywide

High-Tech Crime Fighting Meets Privacy Concerns

Dallas Police Chief Daniel Comeaux witnessed the power of modern surveillance technology during his first week on the job. Hours before the sun rose on his first day, an elderly man in a wheelchair was shot dead near Fair Park. Two days later, the new chief stood among a cluster of officers outside the suspected gunman's home in west Oak Cliff. He was impressed by one tool the investigators had used to arrive there: the network of license plate-reading cameras scattered across the city.

In Dallas, police have access to more than 600 license-plate reading cameras throughout the city, according to documents recently provided to The News through open records requests. The license plate-reading cameras, usually mounted on 12-foot poles, have quickly become standard in police departments across the country, including the Dallas Police Department. The fast-spreading surveillance network is often lauded by investigators, with many crediting the tool as one of their most effective in identifying suspects, making swift arrests and solving crimes.

Beyond Simple License Plate Reading

The company markets what it calls its "vehicle fingerprint technology," a system that doesn't just read license plates but analyzes a vehicle's make, model, color and other cosmetics — like bumper stickers or decals — to flag it across a network of cameras. The technology, according to company documents, can identify vehicles with paper tags or no tags at all, search for them without a plate number and match images with scanned vehicles to generate investigative leads.

Founded in 2017, the Atlanta-based company markets its technology to law enforcement agencies, as well as homeowners associations and private businesses — many of which share their video access with law enforcement. One of the company's cofounders, Garrett Langley, told Forbes in an article published in September that they had more than 80,000 AI-powered license-plate cameras across the United States. About 5,000 police agencies use the company's tools, he told the magazine. Langley said in the Forbes interview that Flock's systems help solve an estimated million crimes a year and predicted that, within a decade, its nationwide network of cameras and drones could nearly eliminate crime.

Legal Challenges and Privacy Debates

While police departments praise the technology's effectiveness, civil liberties advocates raise serious concerns about mass surveillance. One recent lawsuit in Virginia argues the long-term databases of vehicle movements cross a constitutional line by enabling continuous tracking without a warrant. In that case, two Hampton Roads residents are suing the city of Norfolk, Va. They contend the city's use of a network of Flock license-plate readers amounts to unconstitutional, warrantless surveillance in violation of the Fourth Amendment, according to The Virginian-Pilot.

In Texas, a handful of city and county governments have turned away from Flock Safety, one of the dominant private vendors providing the technology. In those instances, their elected bodies debated the technology's usages and moved to end or not renew their contracts with Flock Safety. In 2022, a policy and advocacy strategy for the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas told The Dallas Morning News the government shouldn't track people's whereabouts just in case they do something wrong and there should be "absolute clarity" about how and where surveillance technology is used in a community. They added that it can disproportionately affect communities of color.

The Future of Urban Surveillance

The exact locations are often withheld by police departments, including by Dallas police, in response to inquiries or open records requests. A crowd-sourced website created by privacy advocates, deflock.me, aims to map Flock cameras around the world and says it has identified more than 58,000 of them. Data retention policies vary by jurisdiction, with Dallas police keeping records for one year compared to the default retention period of 30 days used by many departments.

As cities across America grapple with rising crime rates and shrinking police budgets, automated surveillance systems like license plate readers represent both a technological solution and a constitutional challenge. The balance between public safety and personal privacy will likely be decided in courtrooms, city councils, and ultimately by communities weighing the trade-offs between security and freedom in an increasingly monitored world.