WYLIE — The Wylie City Council voted unanimously Tuesday night to end the city’s contract with Flock Safety, the company that operates automated license plate readers used by police.
Wylie, about 25 miles northeast of Dallas, has six Flock cameras in city limits, according to The Dallas Morning News. The city has used the system since 2024. CBS Texas reports the Wylie Police Department said the six cameras cost about $27,000 a year. Local outlets say the contract ends in October and the cameras are expected to come down around then.
Flock cameras photograph vehicles on public roads and store details such as a car’s description and the date, time and location it passed, the Morning News reported. Police departments can share that data with other agencies.
Residents organized against a renewal. CBS Texas reports Austin Gregory, founder of DeFlock Wylie, launched a petition that gathered more than 700 signatures. At Tuesday’s meeting, residents told the council they feared the cameras could be used for warrantless tracking. The Morning News reported some speakers quoted the Founding Fathers and said privacy risks outweighed crime-fighting benefits.
Police argued to keep the system. Assistant Police Chief Tommy Walters told the council the cameras helped solve cases that might otherwise have gone cold, including a homicide, the Morning News reported. Walters called the technology a “game changer” and said Wylie officers must enter a case number to search the database.
Council members discussed tighter limits, including shorter data storage and limits on which agencies can see Wylie data, according to the Morning News. Residents said those changes were not enough. Mayor Matthew Porter told CBS Texas the cameras can help solve crimes but that he is concerned about how the data is stored and shared.
“I think that it is a great tool when you guys are legitimately trying to solve cases. My concern is all of that data is being stored and shared with a lot of other departments,” Porter said, according to CBS Texas.
FOX 4 reports Wylie joins other Texas agencies that have stepped back from Flock, including Hood County. Granbury, inside Hood County, still uses the cameras under a separate city contract, according to earlier FOX 4 reporting.
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