Automated license plate readers could soon be entirely eradicated from public roadways across El Paso under a new municipal push to roll back automated surveillance technology. The city’s governing body is moving forward with formal measures that would mandate the comprehensive removal of all such recording devices currently stationed within municipal boundaries.
During its scheduled meeting on Tuesday, Sept. 15, the El Paso City Council is slated to consider and vote on two separate legislative proposals. If passed, these measures will not only dismantle the existing network of automated license plate readers across the city but will also establish an outright ban against securing future vendor agreements for similar vehicular surveillance hardware.
The devices targeted by the council action are AI-powered automated license plate readers produced by Flock Safety, an enterprise whose monitoring equipment has seen widespread adoption across numerous municipalities throughout the United States. These automated cameras continuously capture and analyze vehicular information as motorists navigate through public thoroughfares.
This local legislative initiative arrives in the wake of significant state-level policy shifts initiated by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott. The governor recently issued a formal directive ordering all state government agencies to immediately halt financial support and state funding allocations directed toward Flock camera systems.
Following Gov. Abbott’s statewide funding prohibition, the El Paso Police Department acted swiftly to reevaluate its reliance on the technology. Law enforcement officials publicly acknowledged that the sudden loss of state financial backing effectively brought an immediate end to the operational use of Flock camera networks within El Paso.
To codify this cessation and eliminate lingering equipment, the first of the two council proposals instructs the city manager to actively oversee and guarantee the removal of all automated license plate reader systems located across the municipality. Under the terms of the measure, the administration is given a strict 60-day window to achieve total removal.
The decommissioning directive is comprehensive in scope and applies universally across all installed ALPR units. The proposal dictates that the equipment must be removed regardless of whether the cameras are held under the direct ownership of the city of El Paso, retained as property of Flock Safety, or controlled by an independent third-party organization.
City Representatives Josh Acevedo and Chris Canales spearheaded the initiative by authoring and introducing both proposals for the council’s consideration. In documentation submitted alongside Tuesday’s official agenda, the council members detailed the broad authority granted to municipal administrators to ensure compliance.
According to Acevedo and Canales, the directive empowers the city manager to directly deploy municipal workers to physically take down the monitoring equipment or, alternatively, coordinate directly with Flock Safety or other relevant entities to manage the logistical extraction of the hardware.
The second resolution presented by Acevedo and Canales creates an enduring legal safeguard to prevent municipal administrators from reviving automated surveillance networks. It expressly bars the city manager from negotiating, entering into, executing, extending, or renewing any commercial contract with Flock Safety or any competing automated license plate reading vendor.
Under this measure, the city administration cannot pursue replacement surveillance systems without first obtaining explicit authorization through a subsequent vote and official action by the El Paso City Council. The sponsors framed this stipulation as an essential firewall against unapproved technological substitutions.
In agenda documentation, the council representatives clarified that the restriction is specifically designed to encompass fixed camera installations that automatically log vehicular license plate details before transmitting, storing, processing, or sharing the collected intelligence across networked computer databases.
Acevedo and Canales underscored that the overarching purpose of the measure is to stop the discontinued Flock Safety apparatus from simply being swapped out for an alternative vendor offering comparable fixed, networked vehicular surveillance technology.
While the proposed regulations establish a broad prohibition against stationary neighborhood scanners, the policy incorporates explicit exemptions for specific operational tools. Handheld license plate reader units and mobile camera systems mounted directly onto law enforcement vehicles will remain unaffected by the new municipal ban.
Furthermore, the council’s proposed directive excludes specialized scanning technologies that are deployed for specific commercial and infrastructural tasks. Devices dedicated entirely to managing parking enforcement operations, regulating gated access control, or processing automated highway toll collections will be permitted to continue normal functions.
The upcoming council vote marks a decisive turning point in El Paso’s approach to public surveillance infrastructure, signaling a broad institutional withdrawal from fixed, automated vehicle tracking systems across the border community.
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