The City of Willis has switched off its entire Flock Safety camera network until further notice, city leaders announced, becoming the latest Texas municipality to pull back from automated license plate readers amid a wave of privacy concerns. Willis Mayor William Brown said public safety remains one of the city's highest priorities, but that the city's tools and technology must be appropriately reviewed before the cameras resume operating.
The shutdown was first reported by KTRK-TV, which detailed that city officials did not reveal the specific reasons or concerns that prompted the decision. Brown said the concerns of Willis residents must be heard, and city leaders thanked everyone who shared concerns and questions about the Flock camera system. The Willis City Council is expected to discuss how the city will move forward with its Flock system, though no timeline for that discussion has been announced.
A Statewide Reckoning With License Plate Readers
Willis is not acting in isolation. Its pause lands in the middle of a fast-moving, statewide pushback against automated license plate reader technology across Texas, driven in large part by criminal cases involving officers who allegedly abused the very systems meant to fight crime. In August, an 11-year veteran of the Lufkin Police Department was arrested and indicted on 100 felony counts of misuse of official information for allegedly using surveillance cameras to track 11 private citizens, a case that led Lufkin to suspend its entire camera network, according to Gadget Review.
A separate case out of Fort Bend County drew similar alarm. Former Katy Police Department officer Sergio Rodriguez was indicted in April on felony charges of stalking and misusing public information after allegedly using department Flock cameras more than 2,300 times over six months to monitor his ex-wife, per FOX 26 Houston. Rodriguez was terminated from the department following an internal probe. Closer to Willis in Harris County, the sheriff's office suspended three deputies' access to its 480-camera Flock network in August and launched an internal investigation after a media inquiry flagged potentially unauthorized searches.
Governor Abbott Freezes State Funding
The mounting scandals prompted Governor Greg Abbott to order all state agencies to halt funding for Flock Safety cameras in late August, a move that had previously channeled tens of millions of dollars toward municipal camera networks statewide, as reported by FOX 7 Austin. The order followed a string of city council decisions that had already begun chipping away at Flock's footprint in Texas.
In Pflugerville, the city council voted unanimously to terminate its Flock contract after a resident's public records request revealed that 459 outside agencies had conducted 1.6 million unauthorized searches of local vehicle data, a story Hoodline covered in its own reporting. Wylie's city council followed with a 7-0 vote against renewing its contract after more than 700 residents signed a petition citing data-sharing and surveillance concerns; that city had operated six cameras since August 2024 at an annual cost of $27,000.
Mixed Responses Across Montgomery County
Not every nearby city has moved to cut ties with the technology. In neighboring Montgomery County, the Conroe City Council indefinitely tabled two Flock oversight proposals in July and then voted 3-2 in August against placing a referendum on the November ballot regarding its 50-camera network, rejecting a public vote that officials estimated would cost $250,000, according to Community Impact. The Woodlands Township Board of Directors, meanwhile, accepted a report in May detailing the deployment of 30 Flock cameras for the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office, funded by $109,500 in township budget allocations with an estimated $90,000 in annual maintenance costs.
Willis has a documented history with the technology. Records compiled by the Electronic Frontier Foundation show the Willis Police Department deployed Flock automated license plate readers alongside several other Montgomery County law enforcement entities, including the Montgomery ISD Police Department, dating back to at least 2025.
Flock Responds With New Privacy Guardrails
Facing backlash nationwide, Flock Safety CEO Garrett Langley announced a company-wide policy overhaul in August that reduced the standard data retention period from 30 days to seven days and required mandatory case codes for every search. The company's own internal analysis found that 90 percent of law enforcement searches occur within seven days of an image being captured, according to Police1's reporting on the changes.
For now, Willis residents are left waiting to see what comes next. City leaders have not detailed what a review of the Flock system will entail or when the council will take up the matter, but Brown's public comments suggest the cameras will stay dark until officials feel confident the concerns raised by residents have been addressed.
