W807392-072826 (Filed 7/28/26)

Why Did We Ask This?
This helps the SAPP and San Antonians understand policies, directives, training materials, and compliance safeguards for ALPR usage by law enforcement. Understanding these materials helps identify gaps in governance, training, and can highlight areas of potential abuse, when compared with actual operational data. 

The Ask: 
Existing materials on how ALPR systems are used, authorized, monitored and audited. Additional materials relating to the training and requirements that SAPD officers must follow when operationalizing ALPR data. 

The Verbatim Language: 

Pursuant to the Texas Public Information Act, I request the current version, and any version superseded on or after January 1, 2023, of each existing policy, standard operating procedure, general manual provision, special order, unit directive, training bulletin, lesson plan, presentation, user guide, written instruction, audit protocol, or compliance checklist governing San Antonio Police Department use of automated license-plate readers. 

This request includes existing records addressing one or more of the following subjects: • authorized purposes for ALPR searches; • required search justification, incident number, or case number; • creation, submission, review, and approval of hotlists or watchlists; • receipt and handling of alerts or “hits”; • confirmation of an alert before a vehicle stop or enforcement action; • handling of partial, inaccurate, mismatched, or false-positive alerts; • historical, pattern, association, or vehicle-location searches; • data-retention and deletion periods; • user eligibility, account creation, and account termination; • supervisory review; • system and query audit logs; • periodic audits or compliance reviews; • external-agency access; • sharing, exporting, or downloading ALPR information; • federal-agency requests or civil-immigration use; • unauthorized searches, misuse, disciplinary referrals, or account suspension; • correction or deletion of inaccurate information; • cybersecurity or compromised-account procedures; and • required initial or recurring user training. Please include unpublished addenda, unit-level instructions, quick-reference guides, training presentations, and system-specific instructions used in addition to the publicly posted SAPD General Manual. 

If an identical General Manual provision or other responsive record is already publicly posted, please identify the document title, section number, revision date, and direct URL rather than reproducing it. Please produce any more current, supplemental, unpublished, or superseded version not available through that public posting. This request does not seek individual officer training histories, examination answers, passwords, network credentials, technical vulnerability information, or records identifying the physical locations of particular ALPR devices. 

I am requesting existing records only. I am not asking the City to explain its policies, answer questions, provide legal conclusions, or create a new summary. Please provide records electronically in their original electronic format or as searchable PDFs where reasonably available. Please provide all reasonably segregable nonexempt portions of responsive records.

Status: (8/12/26) City Staff will contact SAPP within five days of this letter to coordinate production of responsive records. (Exceeded 10 Day Standard Deadline from COSA).