El Paso City Council to vote on surveillance camera contract oversight

Automatically translated from Spanish. Read the original in Spanish

The El Paso City Council is scheduled to vote this Tuesday on a measure that will restrict the city manager’s authority. The central goal of this proposal is to prohibit said official from approving future contracts related to license plate reader cameras without first having the direct approval of the council. The session where this matter will be defined is scheduled to begin at 9:00 in the morning.

This initiative arises after the controversy generated by a previous contract that installed 150 cameras from the company Flock in the city, which was never presented to the full council for review. At that time, municipal officials authorized the agreement by modifying an existing agreement that allowed the police department to receive state funds for the deployment of these devices. Council members were not aware of the existence of this equipment until months later, when questions about privacy arose on social media late last year.

The motion to be voted on this October 9, 2026, explicitly establishes that the city manager will be prohibited from executing, renewing, or extending any agreement with Flock Safety or other vendors without subsequent council action. However, the regulation clarifies that the continued use of automated license plate readers that are handheld, vehicle-mounted, or intended for parking enforcement and toll collection will be permitted.

The context of this decision dates back to the notification sent by city officials to Flock on September 4, informing them that the pause in state funding prevented continued payment for the service subscription. In said communication, the company was requested to cease data collection and sharing, and to remove its equipment. Subsequently, on September 16, the police department formally notified the company that it had a 60-day period to complete the removal of all its infrastructure from municipal properties.

So far, there has been no response from Flock to the city’s demand to remove the devices. It should be remembered that, last month, the council voted unanimously to remove these cameras following the suspension of state funds, giving the company until November 15 to finalize the removal process.