Questions residents may have about ending the program.

They can generate investigative leads and improve the speed of plate checks. That is a real benefit, but it does not by itself justify collecting searchable records about every passing vehicle. Celina has not published local confirmed-hit, false-positive, arrest, recovery, or crime-reduction totals alongside its activity counts.

That unquantified benefit does not justify a permanent 47-reader network and broad sharing.

No. A 30-day window still allows repeated reads to be searched as a travel history. Celina's policy also says case-related data can be held longer and that plate reads are sent to Texas DPS every 24 hours. Deletion must therefore cover exports, backups, shared copies, and DPS-held copies where no legal preservation duty applies.

Read Celina's policy

The policy contains meaningful safeguards: authorized users, documented reasons, prohibited uses, access logs, and human verification. The City also says program management audits queries and reasons. The policy still says reasonable suspicion or probable cause is not required for a search and permits broad law-enforcement purposes.

Internal auditing is not the same as public accountability. Celina's portal does not publish the search-level audit that multiple other agency portals make downloadable. Residents can see a search total without the reasons, offense categories, timing, network scope, or outside-agency involvement behind it.

Rules can reduce harm, but they do not stop the underlying mass collection or networked access. Ending the program would.

The City and vendor describe the readers as capturing license plates and vehicle characteristics, not faces or race. The concern here is vehicle-location tracking: a plate can be associated with a person through other records and repeatedly observed across time and place.

City description Vendor description

No. It evaluates one surveillance tool, its scope, and the evidence offered to justify it. Residents can support effective public safety and still reject suspicionless collection of ordinary travel.

No. The Fifth Circuit's 2025 Porter decision did not create a categorical ban on ALPRs. Constitutional minimums and local policy choices are different questions. Celina's elected officials may choose a more privacy-protective course even if a limited use might survive a particular legal challenge.

Read the Fifth Circuit opinion

Removal would eliminate one source of investigative leads. The policy choice is whether that loss outweighs the intrusion and risks of routine location collection. Celina should explain the tool's verified local outcomes and how it will meet public-safety needs with targeted, lawful methods.

No. “Granted access” is not proof that every listed organization searched or used Celina data. The reviewed portal does not publish organization-level query histories or explain each agency's use. The site therefore treats broad access as a documented capability, not as proof that every organization used it.

Ending the program should include closing outside access. The City should also disclose how often outside organizations searched Celina data.

No. The FY2026 $112,000 grant contract is real and ran through August 31, 2026. Celina still listed a $28,000 local share for the first year, and the records reviewed here do not show how much the City received in reimbursements.

The MVCPA Board later approved FY2027 task-force award recommendations that list Celina for $98,400. As of August 24, the state's expenditure disclosure did not yet show a new FY2027 Celina contract or reimbursements. Even if another government source covers most of the bill, the privacy question remains: the system collects and shares travel records from ordinary drivers.

TxDMV contract disclosure 2025 Police presentation FY2027 recommendation Board approval transcript

Better rules still leave the cameras collecting vehicle-location records from people who are not suspected of a crime. Rules may reduce some risks, but they do not stop the collection. Ending the program does.