Austin City Hall removed item 67 from their Thursday, June 5, agenda. Item 67, as reported by Luz Moreno-Lozano (source), was to be a vote renewing the AI license plate tracking system installed throughout the City of Austin. First introduced in 2023, the pilot program has now been in use for a year but will cease operations on June 30, following concerns raised by Austin residents.

Amid rising immigration tensions, locals spoke up at Austin City Hall to express their apprehensions about the AI tracking program. Concerned members of the Austin community cited the collection of locational data as a threat to undocumented immigrants or potentially women seeking abortion as their main reasons to speak out against the program. 

Austin, unable to be a sanctuary city due to Governor Greg Abbott’s efforts to crack down on such cities in Texas during Trump’s first term in office (source), has still harbored fewer attacks on its most vulnerable communities than many other large cities. The collection of personal data and identifiers is a door waiting to be cracked, exposing the whereabouts of immigrants should a leak–or authorized request by ICE–be allowed. 

The program also poses a threat to citizens, specifically women, as laws surrounding abortion intensify. Record of any locational data in the wrong hands is dangerous. APD largely adhered to the regulations (source) stipulated during the pilot program, but concerns about the potential harm of this information remain.