Austin City Council votes to extend license plate reader pilot program

AUSTIN, Texas - One year has passed since Austin launched its automated license plate reader pilot program. 

Austin City Council voted 8-3 for a three-month extension. Council Members Mike Siegel, Zo Qadri, and Natasha Harper-Madison voted against it.

The city auditor will do a comprehensive review of the program to present in May. 

The backstory:

The City Council voted for the three-month extension so they could see the auditor's report before voting to make the program permanent.

There are 40 license plate readers located throughout the city, with the highest concentration downtown.

Data shows 641,093 vehicles were detected in the last 30 days. In that same period, there were 1,195 hotlist hits. 

Hits could be a stolen car, a vehicle registered to someone with a warrant, a car associated with a missing person case, or a criminal investigation.

Unrelated data is deleted after seven days. Officers have to do annual training for it. 

In a memo, APD Chief Lisa Davis called it an effective tool. In the first nine months, 165 people were arrested, and 176 stolen vehicles recovered using the data. 

People were arrested for a variety of felonies, including murder, robbery, and sexual assault. 

Dig deeper:

At a work session this week, Council Member Mike Siegel (District 7) asked APD how outside agencies can access data.

"I'm concerned about how our city's participation in, frankly, a mass surveillance program such as automated license plate readers could negatively impact our community, in particular some of the most vulnerable segments of our community, including immigrants, people seeking reproductive care, people seeking gender-affirming care and more," he said. "Things have changed since the City Council last considered this policy. In particular what has changed is how federal power is being weaponized against many communities."

Assistant Chief Jeff Greenwalt with Austin police says they are not required to turn over data on abortion cases to the state.

"The only agency that we're required under law to provide that information to would be Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)," he said. "In the 12 months that we've had the pilot program, we had absolutely zero requests from any outside law enforcement agency for any of our data whatsoever."