Public safety with a defined boundary.

Discussion draft · October 10, 2026

This is the policy we are asking New Braunfels to consider. It governs City departments and people acting on the City’s behalf. It does not independently ban private cameras or dictate another government’s operations.

Keep the alert. Discard the nonmatch.

Hit-only systems would compare plates locally against eligible hotlists. Non-hit observations would stay only in necessary volatile memory, be discarded immediately after comparison or failure, and never enter persistent storage or an external historical network.

A candidate alert is not yet a verified hit. The draft gives staff a limited verification period, requires human confirmation, restricts access to retained hits, and ties longer retention to documented case needs and controlling law.

Where readers could operate

• Fixed or stationary: only at City Council–approved roadway crossings of the incorporated New Braunfels boundary, identified in Exhibit A with capture areas and necessary permissions.
• Moving police vehicles: compliant hit-only readers during ordinary lawful patrol within the City. Brief traffic stops do not turn patrol into a fixed deployment.
• Parked or staged equipment: no workaround. A car, trailer, or portable stand used as a stationary reader must meet the entry-point rule.
• Historical ALPR systems: prohibited at every City location and on every platform, including patrol cars.

Limit facial recognition and AI surveillance

The proposal prohibits generalized biometric monitoring, cross-camera personal tracking, commercial location histories, and automated dossiers about people’s movements or associations. It expressly covers AI, machine learning, and conventional software.

A narrow exception would permit facial recognition only for a specific criminal investigation under a valid warrant or court order defining the images, reference material, purpose, and duration. It would require documented human review. It would not authorize live crowd scanning, generalized tracking, or historical ALPR searches.

AI-assisted plate reading remains permitted within a compliant hit-only system. A separate, tightly limited facial-detection exception allows privacy redaction.

Name who receives the data

Voluntary interagency sharing would be limited to eligible Texas state and local agencies, on a documented case basis. Federal agencies and agencies of other states or countries are excluded, including indirect access through task forces or vendors. Binding legal obligations remain controlling.

The City would maintain an online register naming recipients and vendors, publishing their agreements and authorized purposes, and reporting actual sharing activity. Generic labels such as “law enforcement partners” would not be enough.

Make the rules testable

Independent verification before activation, monthly compliance reviews, quarterly independent audits, public reporting, enforceable vendor terms, and suspension of noncompliant functions would give the ordinance practical effect.

The tradeoff is real

The City would lose the ability to search earlier non-hit observations after a vehicle becomes relevant to a case. This campaign supports that privacy limit while preserving prospective alerts. Compatibility of existing vendor equipment with the proposed hit-only requirements has not been established.