Surveillance Technology in Hamilton County: What the Records Show

Hamilton County, Tennessee

Hamilton County is home to Chattanooga, and it's where our first records come from: the county's purchase resolution, vendor quotes and contracts, a state highway license, the minutes of the meeting where the purchase was approved, and correspondence between vendors and the Sheriff's Office.

The Purchase

On November 15, 2023, the Hamilton County Commission approved Resolution No. 1123-33: a $1,184,929.16 purchase of license-plate reader (LPR) cameras from Motorola Solutions, through its subsidiary Vigilant Solutions. The money came from the 2023 Violent Crime Intervention Fund (VCIF) Collaborative Grant. The Sheriff told commissioners the grant "is not county taxpayer money but federal and state money" and can't be used for anything else.

The cameras were not competitively bid. The county bought them through an existing Tennessee statewide contract (SWC-450), which county procurement rules allow. The resolution says pricing under that contract "is considered economically fair" and calls Motorola "the best and most economical source." No competitive-bid process appears anywhere in the records.

The 122 cameras were split across five agencies. "Fixed" cameras mount on poles or walls; "solar mobile" cameras are battery-and-solar units that can be moved.

Source: Resolution No. 1123-33 and the five attached Motorola/Vigilant vendor quotes (Oct. 10–16, 2023). The five quotes add up exactly to the resolution total.

How It Was Approved

This purchase wasn't a quiet consent-agenda item. According to the official minutes, commissioners spent about 27 minutes on it. Five commissioners questioned Sheriff Austin Garrett, and two residents spoke against the purchase during public comment. The Commission then approved it 11–0.

The Sheriff's answers that day are the most detailed public statements about how this system works found anywhere in the records. They're quoted in the sections below.

Source: Hamilton County Board of Commissioners, Regular Meeting minutes, Nov. 15, 2023, pp. 30–34, also posted at hamiltontn.gov.

The Separate Flock Safety Contract

The Sheriff's Office also has a separate contract with a second vendor, Flock Safety. In December 2023, emails show the Sheriff's Office arranging a deal for four Flock cameras (quoted at $12,600 for the first year) and signing a Flock contract on December 27, 2023.

A fully signed Flock order form dated July 22, 2024 covers something broader: a $51,000 platform package, billed annually, with a 12-month initial term that auto-renews for 24-month terms unless either side gives 30 days' notice. The records don't show whether this is the same deal as the December 2023 one at a final price, a renewal, or a separate agreement.

Flock's emails also show how its shared network is sold. In December 2023, Flock told the Sheriff's Office that starting January 1, 2024, "Access to the Flock Network will only be available for paying customers," at $45,000 to $46,000 a year in spending (the emails give both figures). Flock waived that fee for one year. The records don't say what happened after that year.

Sources: Flock Safety emails with the Sheriff's Office: Dec. 7, Dec. 10, Dec. 12, and Dec. 27, 2023; Flock Safety Order Form, fully executed July 22, 2024.

A feature that reaches beyond drivers

The July 2024 package includes a feature called "FirstTwo Connection." According to the order form, when a license-plate alert or a dispatch call for service happens, the map shows markers on nearby buildings, and clicking one displays "information about the residents in that building," including "their names, ages, addresses, and a link to FirstTwo for phone numbers and additional details."

This only works if the Sheriff's Office separately holds its own account with a company called FirstTwo. The records don't show whether it does. If it's active, it also reaches people who live near wherever an alert happens, not only drivers who pass a camera.

Source: Flock Safety Order Form, July 22, 2024, platform feature table.

What the Cameras Record

Asked by a commissioner what the system collects, the Sheriff answered that "the collected information stored would be a picture with a time stamp, a date, and information on specific details where the image occurred."

That confirms four things locally: a photo, the time, the date, and the location. The Motorola/Vigilant quotes also describe a central, cloud-hosted database with "Plate searching, mapping, data mining utilities."

Sources: Commission minutes, Nov. 15, 2023, p. 32; Motorola/Vigilant hosting addendum, in Resolution No. 1123-33.

How Long the Data Is Kept

The answer has three parts.

1. No agency has published a written retention policy. No retention schedule appears in any of the Motorola/Vigilant purchase documents, and none of the five agencies has a policy residents can read.
2. State law and the Sheriff both point to 90 days. Tennessee law (T.C.A. § 55-10-302) says plate data held by any Tennessee government agency "may not be stored for more than ninety (90) days," unless it's part of an ongoing investigation, in which case it must be destroyed when the investigation ends without charges or when the criminal case concludes. At the 2023 meeting, the Sheriff also said Motorola "has a 90-day retention period." Flock's July 2024 contract separately states "Retention Period: 30 Days" for its system.
3. Nobody has confirmed the agencies follow it. Nothing in the records shows whether any agency is deleting data at 90 days in practice, or how the "ongoing investigation" exception is applied.

Two more limits are worth knowing. The state law defines these systems as "one (1) or more fixed high-speed cameras." Whether it covers the 45 solar mobile cameras, or the readers the Sheriff said his office uses "in every patrol vehicle," isn't settled by the text. And Flock's 30-day figure covers Flock's own copy of the raw data. It says nothing about copies pulled into an investigation file or shared with another agency.

Sources: T.C.A. § 55-10-302, enacted as Public Chapter 625 (2014) (opens in new tab) and unchanged since; Commission minutes, Nov. 15, 2023, pp. 31–32; Flock Safety Order Form, July 22, 2024.

Who Can See the Data

This is the most important open question in the records. Two statements, both on the record, describe data sharing differently:

We aren't saying either statement is wrong. The setup may have changed between 2021 and 2023, or "third-party sharing" may mean something narrower to one speaker than the other. But residents still don't have a clear, written answer to a simple question: who can see my plate reads? That's the answer we're seeking from the Sheriff's Office.

Other records add context without settling it:

• The state highway license for the cameras (below) bars selling or commercially using the data, "other than sharing with other law enforcement agencies in the United States as authorized by law." It doesn't say which agencies.
• No agreement listing which outside agencies can search Hamilton County's data was found in the records.
• In September 2021, a Sheriff's Office employee asked the state's crime-database coordinator to send the daily plate "hotlist" to a Flock-run email inbox. The state coordinator refused: "The email has to be an agency email address that ends in hcsheriff.gov, I don't send it to the company." The safeguard came from the state.

Sources: Motorola/Vigilant email, Oct. 15, 2021; Commission minutes, Nov. 15, 2023, p. 32; TDOT license, Section 4; hotlist emails, Sept. 20, 2021.

Where the Cameras Are

A March 2024 license between the Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT) and the Sheriff's Office lets the Sheriff's Office mount fixed cameras on state highway land for "aiding in criminal investigations or searches for missing or endangered persons." The license runs 10 years (to March 2034), and the Sheriff's Office pays $0 for it.

It lists 63 camera units at 49 sites along 13 state routes. Most sites have one camera; 14 have two, one facing each direction of traffic.

These locations come from public records and are published so residents can see what's there. CCAP and DeFlock Chattanooga never damage, move, or tamper with any camera or other property, and we ask the same of everyone. The way to remove these cameras is through local governments.

Two limits on this list. First, the records don't show whether these 63 cameras are some of the 122 purchased in 2023, a separate set, or a mix. Second, the license covers state highways only. Cameras on city or county roads would fall under separate agreements we don't have.

Source: TDOT–Hamilton County Sheriff's Office ALPR license (Request No. 7221), executed March 21–22, 2024, Exhibit A.

What's Missing From the Public Record

• No written use policy. No agency's rules for who can search the system, for what reasons, or who approves a search were found.
• No audit rules. The Motorola/Vigilant materials mention "management auditing," but nothing says what's logged or who reviews it.
• The governing contracts aren't in the documents. Every Motorola quote says its terms are governed by a Master Customer Agreement posted at a web link the company can change. Flock's order form does the same with its terms of service. A required "Enterprise Service Agreement" is referenced but not included.
• Unsigned signature pages. The Motorola/Vigilant contract acknowledgement pages in the records are blank. The resolution itself was signed, but it isn't confirmed these specific documents were ever executed.

What We're Asking

These are the questions the records leave open, and the focus of our next public records requests.

1. Data sharing: a written explanation from the Sheriff's Office reconciling the 2021 vendor email with the Sheriff's 2023 statement, and a written statement of current sharing practice.
2. Use policy: each agency's written rules for who can search the system and why.
3. Retention in practice: records showing when data is deleted in practice, and how the "ongoing investigation" exception is applied.
4. Mobile cameras: whether the 90-day limit is applied to the solar mobile and patrol-car readers.
5. FirstTwo: whether the Sheriff's Office holds a FirstTwo account.
6. The full contracts: Motorola's Master Customer Agreement, Flock's terms of service, and signed copies of every agreement, including the December 2023 Flock deal.
7. Camera locations: whether the 63 state-highway cameras are among the 122 purchased, and where any other cameras are.
8. Outside access: any agreements letting other agencies, including federal immigration authorities, search the data. Nothing in the records mentions immigration authorities either way.
9. Facial recognition: in November 2022, a Chattanooga PD proposal for regional grant money paired more plate readers with "facial recognition software with the county's mugshot information added to it," and a separate budget email for the same grant cycle listed a quote from Clearview AI, a facial-recognition company. The records don't show whether either was funded. (Sources: Chattanooga PD proposal, Nov. 1, 2022; grant budget quotes, Nov. 8, 2022)
10. City of Chattanooga review: when the City Council's review of the Axon license-plate readers will happen, and whether it will be a public agenda item with time for comment.

Also Happening: The City of Chattanooga's Axon Contract

This is a different government from the county records above. Those purchases were made by Hamilton County and its Sheriff's Office. This item is about the City of Chattanooga, which sits inside Hamilton County.

On September 22, 2026, the Chattanooga City Council approved Resolution #32997: a five-year contract with Axon Enterprise for public safety hardware and software for the Chattanooga Police and Fire Departments, with an annual spending limit of up to $3 million. The contract is based on a cooperative purchasing contract (Sourcewell #101223-AXN). According to the official minutes, the Council's discussion covered the inclusion of 36 Axon license-plate readers.

Before voting, the Council amended the resolution. As adopted, the contract is "subject to final review of ALPR equipment, installation, and service by the city council before deployment of such technology shall occur." The amended resolution passed, with Councilman Cody Harvey voting no.

Other topics the minutes list from the discussion include AI vehicle-tracking capabilities (raised by Councilman Harvey), clarification that the readers aren't deployed, possible placement in "high-crime hotspots" (Councilman Dennis Clark), and a district notification requirement (Vice Chair Ron Elliott).

Source: Chattanooga City Council minutes, Sept. 22, 2026 (opens in new tab), pp. 2, 6–7.

What officials said, as reported

NewsChannel 9 reported that Councilman Harvey said, "In my opinion, I think we need to pump the brakes a little bit on these and listen to folks' concerns before we go full steam ahead." It also reported that City Chief of Staff Kevin Roig said, "The city will not deploy a single one of these cameras in any way, anywhere, without us coming back and all talking about it."

What happens next

Under the adopted resolution, the city can't deploy the plate readers until the City Council reviews the equipment, installation, and service. That review is the next chance for public input, and we'll note it here when it's scheduled. See how to get involved →