Denton County

Volunteers have mapped 707 devices in Denton County, 639 of them license plate readers, and 593 of the county’s mapped devices record Flock Safety as the manufacturer. The Commissioners Court’s own record shows the Sheriff’s Office subscribing to a facial recognition search built on photos collected from the internet, placing Flock cameras on county property, and fitting its patrol cars with plate readers.

We read the Commissioners Court’s minutes for every meeting from January 2015 to September 2026, 579 documents, and the agreements, memos and quotes behind the items on this page. Each set of minutes records the item, the documents attached to it, who moved it and the vote.

Clearview AI facial recognition

In May 2023 the Court approved an agreement for the Sheriff’s Office to use Clearview AI, a service that matches a photo of a face against images Clearview collects from the public internet. It renewed the agreement for three years that September and again in August 2026, through September 2029. Each approval was its own item under the Sheriff’s heading, and each passed without a recorded vote against. Clearview AI facial recognition has the details.

Flock Safety cameras

In December 2021 the Court approved an agreement letting the Sheriff’s Office search Flock’s plate reader network at no cost. In September and October 2024 it approved Flock cameras on county property: five on light poles around the Sheriff’s Office and jail, and four more on county poles the record does not locate. Flock Safety plate readers has the details.

Plate readers in patrol cars

From 2020 to 2025 the Court approved 30 mobile plate reader systems for Sheriff’s Office patrol vehicles, from Vigilant Solutions and Motorola Solutions. The office’s plate reader policy, attached to the 2020 agreement, states no retention period, and a state agreement lets the Texas Department of Public Safety share the office’s reads with other agencies. In-car plate readers has the details.

Drones

The Court has approved drone purchases and budget transfers for the Sheriff’s Office since 2021. A $93,109.69 purchase in April 2022 converted a van for drone operations. A $28,472 transfer in August 2023 was “to fund the purchase of a Drone to be used in surveillance and tracking for criminal investigations”, and an $18,503 transfer in September 2024 was for “3 drones to be used by the Special Operations Units to aid in investigations and surveillance”. In September 2026 it approved $23,547 for three DJI Matrice 4T drones.

A camera trailer from a federal grant

In October 2022 the Court accepted a $118,000 federal Urban Area Security Initiative grant for a “Special Event Camera Trailer”. In December 2023 it accepted $168,000 more for a camera trailer for the Office of Emergency Management, and in February 2025 it carried that $168,000 into the new budget unspent.

What the record does not show

Over the 579 sets of minutes, no item mentions a real time crime center, gunshot detection, Fusus, a cell site simulator or a fusion center. That is a statement about what this Court was asked to consider, not about what operates in Denton County. Denton, Lewisville, Flower Mound, The Colony, Little Elm and the county’s other cities run their own police departments, and the Atlas of Surveillance records plate readers, drones and camera registries for many of them. We have not read their records.

The county documents also leave the questions that matter most for residents unanswered: how often the Sheriff’s Office searches Clearview, who it searches for, how long plate reads are kept, and which agencies can search them.