Eight cameras now watch the roads in and out of Wylie, scanning every license plate that passes.

The Wylie Police Department has deployed eight Flock Safety automated license plate reader cameras since its first unit went live on Aug. 12, 2024, Assistant Police Chief Tommy Walters told The Wylie News. Seven are installed and one is awaiting deployment. The city pays $27,000 a year.

Walters said the department initially funded the cameras through asset forfeiture money before folding the cost into its annual operating budget. The police department's total budget for fiscal year 2024-2025 is $17.07 million, according to city budget documents.

The department describes the technology as an important investigative tool while acknowledging the privacy concerns that surround its use. Wylie PD has not disclosed specific cases where the cameras aided investigations, nor has it published the cameras' locations.

How the technology works

Flock cameras use artificial intelligence to photograph every passing vehicle, capturing the license plate number, make, model, color and distinguishing features like bumper stickers, according to The Texas Tribune. The data uploads to a searchable cloud database. Officers can query the system without a warrant.

Under Flock Safety's default policy, captured data is encrypted and automatically deleted after 30 days unless tied to an active investigation. Agencies can extend retention up to one year with approval from an elected official or governing body.

Whether Wylie PD participates in Flock's national data-sharing network, which allows officers to search plate data collected by other departments across the country, has not been publicly confirmed.

Privacy debate hits close to home

The cameras are drawing scrutiny across North Texas. In nearby Carrollton, which operates between 50 and 60 Flock cameras, residents formed a group called DeFlock Carrollton and circulated a petition to remove the devices, KERA News reported Thursday, July 30.

Kenneth Feagins, chair of the Libertarian Party in Collin County, told the Carrollton City Council on Thursday, July 30: "With enough location data, you can reconstruct someone's life, where they work, worship, receive medical care, whom they visit, which political meetings they attend, and the routines of their family. The burden belongs to government to justify surveillance of a specific individual, not to residents to justify their privacy."

Nationally, at least 47 cities have terminated Flock contracts, according to DeFlock, an anti-surveillance group, as reported by the Texas Tribune on Aug. 3. Austin and Bandera are among the Texas cities that ended their agreements. More than 200 Texas law enforcement agencies share Flock data with the Texas Department of Public Safety, which approved a $26 million Flock contract in 2025 to support border operations.

U.S. Rep. Keith Self, a McKinney Republican whose district includes Wylie, proposed legislation in July 2026 requiring federal agencies to obtain warrants before accessing Flock data.

What Wylie residents don't yet know

Wylie PD has not opted into Flock Safety's optional public Transparency Portal. The portal page for the department returns a "page not found" error. That means residents cannot independently verify how many searches officers have run, what alerts the system has generated, or which agencies Wylie shares data with.

No public review or city council discussion of the program has been announced. No contract renewal date has been made public.

Residents who want to learn more about the program can contact the Wylie Police Department at 972-442-8171.