DeflockBCS
Every time a police officer searches Flock's system, Flock writes a line in an audit log: who searched, when, which camera networks they searched, and the reason they typed in. We obtained the audit logs for the College Station and Bryan camera networks through public records requests. You can now search them yourself on our new Audit Log Search page.
The logs answer a question the city has never answered clearly: who is actually using College Station's cameras?
The answer is mostly people who are not from College Station.
The College Station numbers
The College Station log runs from October 16, 2025 to August 31, 2026.
| College Station network | |
|---|---|
| Searches that ran through College Station's cameras | 3,317,434 |
| Searches run by College Station PD | 6,542 (0.2%) |
| Searches run by everyone else | 3,310,892 (99.8%) |
| Agencies that searched | 504 |
| Average searches per day | more than 10,000 |
For every search CSPD ran on its own network, outside agencies ran about 506.
Houston PD alone ran 716,357 searches through College Station's cameras. That is more than 100 times CSPD's own total. Dallas PD ran 527,696. The Texas Department of Public Safety ran 328,974.
The volume is also growing. College Station's network logged 201,879 searches in November 2025 and 427,759 in June 2026, more than twice as many.
Nobody in College Station signs off
None of those 3.3 million searches needed approval from anyone in College Station. CSPD turned on data sharing with outside organizations (the department shares with 488 of them). After that, an officer in Houston, Dallas or Fort Worth can search our cameras directly.
No CSPD supervisor reviews the search. No judge signs a warrant. The city council does not see it. Our police chief does not get a phone call. The only record that a search happened is the line in the audit log, and the public only sees that log when someone files a records request for it.
What the officers said they were looking for
Each search has a reason field. The officer picks a category from a list and can add a short note. Most reasons are what you would expect: stolen vehicles, warrants, narcotics. Some are not.
In the College Station log alone:
- 1,034 searches gave Immigration (civil/administrative) as a reason.
- 1,106 searches gave Immigration (criminal) as a reason.
- 312,801 searches did not name any standard category.
Civil immigration enforcement is not a crime. It is the kind of use College Station residents were never asked about.
Bryan's network is bigger, and reaches further
The Bryan log covers a longer period, January 2024 to April 2026. It shows what happens to a network after a couple of years of sharing:
- 14,786,394 searches ran through Bryan's cameras.
- Bryan PD ran 30,839 of them (0.2%).
- 5,294 agencies searched the network.
- Agencies from 47 other states ran 6.8 million of those searches.
- 12 federal agencies searched it, including U.S. Border Patrol and Homeland Security Investigations.
What the search page lets you do
The Audit Log Search page has three views:
- Bryan PD and College Station PD. Every search each department ran, one record at a time. Search by reason, category, text prompt or search ID. Filter by category, search type and date range.
- All agencies. Every outside agency that searched either network. Filter by state, sort by the number of searches, and open any agency to see its monthly search chart. (Individual records are only published for Bryan PD and College Station PD. Outside agencies show totals and monthly counts.)
The Key Figures page shows the totals: searches per month, agencies by state, the most active agencies, stated reasons and search types.
Look up your own city. Look up the agencies you would never expect to be watching Bryan/College Station. Check the reasons.
A note on what the numbers mean
A search that "ran through" College Station's network means the officer's search included our cameras. It does not mean they found a car here. Most of these are statewide lookups that sweep every network they have access to. That is the point. Once sharing is turned on, our cameras become part of everyone's search, every day, whether or not anyone here knows about it.
Officer names, plate numbers and case numbers are redacted in the released records. The search page only shows whether each one was present.
What you can do
- Search the logs. Share what you find.
- Ask the council one question: should 500 outside agencies be able to search College Station's cameras without asking anyone here? Contact details are on our Take Action page.
Source records: Bryan PD request PD-2026-852; College Station PD requests PDRR2026-863 and PDRR2026-1693. Figures are as of the data published on October 1, 2026. New to this issue? Start with The Facts.
