Fort Bend County

Volunteers have mapped 798 devices in Fort Bend County, 729 of them license plate readers, and 647 of the county’s mapped devices record Flock Safety as the manufacturer. The Commissioners Court’s own record shows county offices buying and joining plate reader systems from two vendors, and approving the permits that put Flock cameras beside county roads.

We read the Commissioners Court’s minutes for every meeting from January 2019 to 13 August 2026, and the posted agendas for the meetings after that and for the addenda: 341 documents. They are detailed minutes. Each item appears in full with the commissioner who moved it, the commissioner who seconded it and the vote, and the contracts and quotes behind an item are attached to it.

Plate readers in the Sheriff’s patrol cars

On 24 June 2025 the Court approved an Axon Enterprise addendum “for the purchase of Axon Fleet ALPR licenses and cameras, in an amount not to exceed $1,150,276.40”. The quote attached to it, billed to the Sheriff’s Office, carries 336 plate reader licenses for Axon’s in-car camera system, together with 336 licenses for real-time location, alerts and livestreaming. In February 2026 the Court approved 71 more of each, in an addendum whose title does not mention plate readers.

Both sit on top of a ten-year Axon contract for body cameras, Tasers and in-car cameras that the Court approved in November 2021 at $22,085,574.99 and raised to $24,334,569.48 in March 2022. All of it was bought through Sourcewell, a purchasing cooperative, rather than a county bid. Axon in-car plate readers has the details.

Flock Safety, four ways in

The Sheriff’s Office has held Flock agreements since June 2021. In January 2024 the Court exempted a five-year Flock subscription for the office from competitive bidding and approved it: 31 cameras, $77,500 a year, footage kept 30 days. Constable Precinct 4, the District Attorney’s Office and the county’s Environmental Health department have Flock access agreements of their own.

Municipal Utility Districts, the elected boards that finance services for subdivisions outside cities, pay for Flock cameras that county officers use. Six times between October 2023 and June 2025 the Court approved an agreement of that kind naming the Sheriff’s Office or Constable Precinct 4 as the user.

The Court also approved 29 permits between October 2020 and December 2023 for Flock to install cameras in the county’s right of way, all on the consent agenda, the block of routine items passed in one motion. Up to November 2022 the permits say “surveillance cameras”. After that they say “safety cameras”. Flock Safety plate readers has every item.

Private cameras shared with the Sheriff

In February 2023 the Court exempted an agreement with Fusus from competitive bidding and approved it, not to exceed $50,000 from state forfeited assets. Fusus is software for viewing many live video sources together, including cameras owned by businesses and residents. Between February and June 2023 the Court also approved agreements under which seven businesses and schools and one residential association share their own cameras with the Sheriff’s Office. It approved a second year of Fusus in September 2024. Fusus camera sharing platform has the details.

Drones

The Sheriff’s Office has moved money to buy drones and to renew DroneSense licenses, software for managing drone flights, in 2022, 2023 and 2024, including $11,675 for a Matrice 30T drone in July 2023. In November 2024 the Court approved a county letter supporting the office’s application to the Federal Aviation Administration to fly an unmanned aircraft system.

What the record does not show

Over the 341 documents, no item mentions a real time crime center, gunshot detection or facial recognition. That is a statement about what this Court was asked to consider, not about what operates in Fort Bend County. Most of the county’s mapped devices name no operator, and the cities of Sugar Land, Missouri City, Rosenberg, Stafford, Fulshear, Richmond, Meadows Place and Arcola run their own police departments, whose records we have not read.

The purchasing documents also leave the questions that matter most for residents unanswered: where the cameras are, how many are running, how long the images are kept, and which agencies can search them.