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Verification record · Standard v1.0

Austin, Texas

Austin's Flock contract was cancelled in 2025 after a sustained organizing campaign — a real win. EFF subsequently reported that Austin continued to use ALPR through Axon. Austin is published here as the explicit demonstration of the vendor-neutral rule: cancelling one company does not qualify a community if substantially equivalent mass ALPR capability remains in place.

This is not a Verified Unsurveilled designation. This jurisdiction has been assessed and does not currently qualify.

Status
Does not currently qualify
Standard
v1.0
Last reviewed
Aug 14, 2026
Criteria met
0 of 12
DOES NOT CURRENTLY QUALIFYEVIDENCE UNDER REVIEW

Disqualifying findings

  • EFF reported that Austin continued to use ALPR through Axon after the Flock contract was cancelled. Substantially equivalent mass ALPR capability remaining in place is disqualifying under criteria 1, 2, and 12.

The case that defines the rule

Austin organizers cancelled the city’s Flock ALPR contract in 2025. That was a genuine campaign victory, reported as such by EFF, and it took real work by real people.

EFF also reported that Austin continued to use ALPR through Axon.

Both of those things are true at once, and holding them together is the entire point of this record.

Why we publish this instead of quietly omitting it

It would be easier to leave Austin off the site. A campaign win followed by a vendor substitution is an awkward story, and the people who organized that campaign deserve credit rather than a “not qualified” label next to their city.

We publish it because the alternative is worse. If Unsurveilled listed contract cancellations as wins without checking what replaced them, this site would become a directory of announcements rather than a record of outcomes — and the first city to game it would do so by switching suppliers and issuing a press release.

The standard therefore turns on one question that no vendor-specific campaign can answer for it:

Can this department still build and search a history of where ordinary people drive?

In Austin, on the available evidence, the answer is yes. The company changed.

The lesson for other campaigns

Write the ask against the capability.

A council resolution that names a vendor has a shelf life measured in procurement cycles. One that governs retention, sharing, and the legal standard required for a historical search will still mean something after the logo on the pole changes.

That is why the campaign on this site is called Warrant Required and not the name of a company.

The rubric, criterion by criterion

All 12 criteria of the published standard, including the 9 not yet examined. A criterion that has not been assessed is shown as unexamined rather than omitted — otherwise a record could look complete by leaving out the awkward questions.

  1. 01

    No persistent mass ALPR program

    Not met

    The municipality does not operate a persistent automated license plate reader program that routinely records ordinary traffic and builds a searchable history of people’s movements.

    EFF reported that Austin continued using ALPR through Axon after the Flock contract was cancelled. Equivalent capability remaining in place fails this criterion regardless of which company supplies it.

    Electronic Frontier Foundation — checked Aug 14, 2026

  2. 02

    No vendor workaround

    Not met

    The municipality has not simply replaced one platform with another providing substantially equivalent dragnet capability.

    This is the definitional case for the criterion: one vendor replaced by another providing substantially equivalent capability.

    Electronic Frontier Foundation — checked Aug 14, 2026

  3. 03

    No routine access to another agency’s dragnet

    Not yet examined

    The municipality does not evade the standard by routinely querying regional, private, vendor, or neighbouring ALPR databases as a substitute for operating its own network.

    Not yet examined.

    What would resolve it Mutual-aid agreements, regional fusion or task-force participation, vendor account access, department policy.

  4. 04

    Targeted investigative exception only under defined lawful authority

    Not yet examined

    Short-term or case-specific use is tied to individualized legal justification, a warrant or court order where required, or a tightly defined exigent circumstance documented by policy.

    Not yet examined.

    What would resolve it Written department policy, authorization logs, ordinance text.

  5. 05

    No persistent facial recognition or biometric identification of the public

    Not yet examined

    No persistent facial-recognition or biometric identification system aimed at the general public.

    Not yet examined.

    What would resolve it Municipal code, department policy, technology inventory, procurement records.

  6. 06

    No purchase of sensitive historical location data from data brokers

    Not yet examined

    The municipality does not purchase sensitive historical location data to circumvent warrant or court-order requirements.

    Not yet examined.

    What would resolve it Procurement records, purchase orders, department policy.

  7. 07

    Democratic control of new surveillance technology

    Not yet examined

    New systems capable of identifying, tracking, or profiling the public require advance public notice, an impact and use policy, and approval by the elected legislative body or an equivalently accountable process.

    Not yet examined.

    What would resolve it Surveillance-technology ordinance, council approval records.

  8. 08

    Public surveillance technology inventory

    Not yet examined

    The municipality publishes what surveillance technologies it uses and for what purpose.

    Not yet examined.

    What would resolve it Published inventory, currency of the most recent version.

  9. 09

    Retention and deletion limits

    Not yet examined

    Personally identifying surveillance data is minimized and deleted on defined schedules unless legitimately tied to a specific investigation or legal obligation.

    Not yet examined.

    What would resolve it Written retention schedule, department policy, contract terms.

  10. 10

    Sharing controls

    Not yet examined

    Sensitive data is not casually pooled, sold, or made broadly searchable by outside agencies; sharing rules and legal standards are public.

    Not yet examined.

    What would resolve it Sharing configuration, data-sharing agreements, published policy.

  11. 11

    Annual transparency reporting

    Not yet examined

    The municipality publishes meaningful annual reports covering use, sharing, complaints, audits, policy violations, costs, and material changes.

    Not yet examined.

    What would resolve it Published reports and whether they are current and substantive.

  12. 12

    Function-over-brand protection

    Not met

    Policies apply to capabilities rather than vendor names, so future technology cannot bypass the spirit of the standard by changing product labels.

    The outcome itself demonstrates the absence of function-level protection: the policy result changed the vendor without changing the capability.

    Electronic Frontier Foundation — checked Aug 14, 2026

Evidence

  • Victory: Austin organizers cancel the city's Flock ALPR contractElectronic Frontier FoundationReports the cancellation and, importantly, that Austin continued to use ALPR through Axon afterwards. This is the clearest available demonstration of why the standard must be vendor-neutral: ending a Flock contract is not ending mass ALPR surveillance.NGO research

Not yet obtained

  • What is the current scope, retention, and sharing configuration of Austin's ALPR use through Axon?Public-records request
  • Was the Axon ALPR capability procured before, during, or after the Flock cancellation?Public-records request

Verified as of

Change log

  1. status change

    Record opened at status NOT QUALIFIED as the standard's explicit vendor-neutrality example.