Editor’s note: This article is part of ALPRs in Focus, a Police1 editorial series examining how agencies use automated license plate reader technology, the investigative value it can provide, and current concerns surrounding privacy, data access, retention and misuse.
By Marcy Calnan, J.D., M.Ed.
Automated license plate readers have become part of a much larger national conversation about public safety, privacy, technology and the proper limits of government. In the abstract, having an opinion is easy. I wanted to see what the technology looked like in practice.
As both a Bastrop County resident and a faculty member in the School of Criminal Justice and Criminology at Texas State University, I had the opportunity to take a firsthand look at how the Bastrop County Sheriff’s Office uses its Flock Safety automated license plate reader system.
I went in with questions — hard questions. More specifically, I was evaluating the government’s use of surveillance technology: Who has access? What prevents misuse? Who is watching the users? What happens when the system generates an alert? Where does technology end and human decision-making begin?
What I found in Bastrop County was instructive.
Transparency matters
To the Sheriff’s Office’s credit, I encountered openness and transparency. I was allowed to ask difficult questions and examine how the system operates while discussing privacy protections, constitutional limitations, internal oversight, investigative benefits and the potential for misuse.
Public confidence in technology should not depend simply on being told to trust the technology or the agency using it. Trust is strengthened when agencies are willing to show how the technology is governed and demonstrate the safeguards surrounding its use.
BCSO did exactly that.
Guardrails are built into access
At BCSO, access to the ALPR system is governed through role-based permissions, with administrative authority limited to a very small number of personnel. Importantly, oversight did not end with restricting access. A civilian held the oversight role and used Flock’s access auditing tools to review system activity for unusual searches or indications of misuse.
They also showed me that an officer cannot simply open the system and conduct an unrestricted search. BCSO users must have authorized access and provide both a legitimate investigative reason and an associated case number before conducting a search. Without the required information, the search will not execute.
Every login also requires acknowledgment of privacy policies restricting misuse and addressing issues including immigration enforcement, reproductive health care and other privacy and constitutional concerns. BCSO personnel authorized to use the system also receive training regarding its proper use and limitations.
Those safeguards matter because the important question surrounding public safety technology should never be simply, “What can this technology do?” Rather, it should be, “What prevents it from being used in ways it should not?”
An alert is a lead, nothing more
One of the most important things I took away from my visit is also one of the easiest aspects of ALPR technology to misunderstand: The technology does not make the enforcement decision.
A Flock hot list alert is an investigative lead. It does not eliminate an officer’s responsibility to independently verify information and establish a lawful basis for whatever action follows. BCSO officers must still validate the information and independently determine whether the circumstances justify a stop, detention, search, arrest or other enforcement action.
That distinction is critical. Technology may identify something worthy of an officer’s attention. Human verification, judgment and constitutional decision-making still have to provide the basis for enforcement.
Filling an investigative blind spot
The investigative value became particularly apparent when we discussed property crime. Many crimes involving stolen vehicles, vehicle burglaries, theft, illegal dumping, catalytic converter theft and similar offenses occur with little or no direct interaction between the offender and victim. This frequently means there is no eyewitness available to provide investigators with the traditional starting point for developing a suspect. In those cases, technological evidence may provide an initial lead where none otherwise exists.
Rather than relying exclusively on memory, incomplete vehicle descriptions or speculation, BCSO investigators can use documented vehicle information as one component of an investigation and then corroborate it through traditional investigative methods.
The Sheriff’s Office shared data and examples reflecting improvements since implementing its ALPR system, including increased investigative leads and case clearances, the recovery of stolen vehicles and property, assistance with illegal dumping investigations and crime deterrence benefits. For a growing county, those outcomes matter.
Bastrop’s geography matters, too
Bastrop County does not exist in isolation. Our community sits along a major corridor between Austin and Houston. This geography means individuals committing crimes can move quickly between major metropolitan areas through smaller surrounding communities.
Criminal activity does not stop at county lines, making regional information sharing particularly important for communities like Bastrop. Participation in a network of compatible technology allows BCSO to protect our county while also assisting agencies investigating crimes beyond it.
Technology can also protect the innocent
There is another side of this discussion that receives considerably less attention. From an evidentiary standpoint, an ALPR capture can provide an objective data point: the observation of a vehicle at a particular location and time. Its significance still depends on the surrounding evidence and investigation.
Sometimes the information may help investigators identify a suspect. Other times, it may rule out an innocent person. Objective evidence does not inherently belong to the prosecution or the defense. Properly collected and interpreted, such evidence belongs to the search for the truth.
Public safety and privacy are not mutually exclusive
No technology should ever be beyond scrutiny. As someone who studies the intersection of law, technology and constitutional rights, I believe skepticism about government technology can be healthy.
Agencies should be expected to explain what technology they use, why they use it, who can access it, what safeguards govern it and what happens when those safeguards are violated. But scrutiny should work both ways. We should be willing to identify risks where they exist and be equally willing to acknowledge when agencies implement meaningful safeguards and technology produces demonstrable public safety benefits.
After observing Bastrop County’s implementation firsthand, asking difficult questions and examining the safeguards surrounding its use, I reached a clear conclusion: BCSO’s ALPR program does not substitute technology for constitutional policing. Rather, it gives trained law enforcement professionals an investigative tool while preserving the necessity of human verification, lawful decision-making, oversight and accountability.
That is why I recently encouraged the Bastrop County Commissioners Court to continue funding the program. As a Bastrop County resident, I want effective tools available to the people responsible for protecting our community. As an attorney and criminal justice educator, I also want those tools surrounded by meaningful constitutional and policy guardrails.
Those objectives do not have to compete. Good public safety technology should make law enforcement more capable without making constitutional protections less meaningful. What I witnessed in Bastrop County demonstrates that we can demand both.
About the author
Marcy Calnan, J.D., M.Ed., is a faculty member in the School of Criminal Justice and Criminology at Texas State University and a Bastrop County resident.
