Texas Governor Greg Abbott has frozen state spending on Flock licence plate cameras. The freeze arrived before an investigation reported that the state had spent more than 30 million dollars on the cameras, money raised through a 1 dollar insurance fee. Officers in at least six Texas cases have been placed on leave or charged, and cities have been cancelling contracts. Abbott said this month his administration had halted 1,800 AI data centre projects, tracing that limit to constituent complaints and power demand at five times Texas supply.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott has frozen state spending on Flock's automated licence-plate reader cameras. The freeze came just before a Texas Tribune investigation reported that the state had spent more than 30 million dollars on the cameras. That money was raised mainly through a 1 dollar fee added to insurance policies to fight catalytic converter theft. The freeze stops the state's own purchasing line.[1]
Flock's cameras have drawn criticism across the political spectrum. Officers have been placed on leave or charged for misusing the systems, at least six of them in Texas. The company has also faced scrutiny over data sharing, camera placement near playgrounds, employee access to video feeds and unsecured video. Cities around the country, many of them in Texas, have been cancelling their contracts. Abbott's Democratic opponent in the governor's race, Gina Hinojosa, has criticised him over the expansion.[1]
Abbott said in a Fox News interview that his moratorium on data centre construction grew out of his constituents' complaints. X had said it found a 200,000-account Chinese bot network, a few hundred of whose accounts posted content disparaging data centres. Abbott accepted that China is trying to shape sentiment, and rested his own change of position on power demand running to five times what Texas can currently supply. He said earlier this month that his administration had halted some 1,800 AI data centre projects in the state. Darren Linvill, a researcher at Clemson University, said most of those accounts drew no engagement and were probably shut down by X before they gathered followers. Samuel Woolley of the University of Pittsburgh said the reports he has seen of Chinese data centre propaganda come from large technology companies with a vested interest in the build-out; X is owned by Elon Musk. The Flock spending freeze may sit on the same line as that data centre halt.[2], [1]
