West Lake Hills Police Department to utilize license plate readers
WEST LAKE HILLS, Texas - West Lake Hills is the latest police department to use license plate readers. It’s a controversial technology police, HOAs and businesses are using to fight crime.
"There are pros and cons of technology more than ever in this day in age," West Lake Hills resident Joe Becht said.
"I’m hoping that it’ll help us keep our residents as safe as we possibly can," West Lake Hills Police Chief Scott Gerdes said.
Nine license plate readers have been installed in the West Lake Hills area. The police chief said the idea to utilize these came after an incident in December 2023 when a group of criminals stole several vehicles and broke into several others in a matter of a few hours.
"After that happened, we had several residents reach out to us and to the mayor and council, those kind of folks, just kind of asking about some sort of camera system that might have helped number one, prevent this or number two, help investigate this kind of stuff," Chief Gerdes said.
The solution was FLOCK license plate readers that snap a time-stamped photo of every vehicle that passes by.
"If you're driving down the road on a public roadway, officers can capture your license plate at any time, and so it is no different than that. But it just captures the vehicle information, make, model, color, any kind of aftermarket alterations, license plate, that kind of thing," Chief Gerdes said.
Law enforcement is alerted when a license plate detected by FLOCK is from a stolen car, associated with a missing person in an AMBER of Silver Alert, or a known wanted suspect from a state or national crime database.
"It sounds reasonable if it's being used objectively by people with warrants and things like that. Otherwise, it might get a little odd if it's checking for tickets and other kind of smaller stuff," West Lake Hills resident Luke Hutson said.
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Chief Gerdes said they are used to solve and reduce property and violent crimes, not used for minor traffic or parking violations.
"I think this is something that’s going to be a force multiplier for us," Chief Gerdes said.
In the last 30 days, FLOCK reported Austin police had more than 1,200 hotlist hits, meaning a wanted suspect passed by a FLOCK camera. Pflugerville PD had almost 1,000, Round Rock had 575, and Buda PD had almost 200.
Some are concerned about where the information is stored and for how long, and there are no state or federal rules regulating it.
"If most people are going to feel like something is a step too far or like the government is snooping where they don't belong, then that's a pretty good barometer to tell that it's going to violate the Fourth Amendment," Institute for Justice Attorney Jared McClain said.
Chief Gerdes said the data is automatically deleted after 30 days. FLOCK said all footage is encrypted, and the company doesn’t sell data to third parties.
The Source: Information from interviews conducted by FOX 7 Austin's Meredith Aldis