Finding endangered people in time
Let Cars Do the Watching — Without Tracking Anyone
Putting Texas emergency alerts into connected cars, with a ban on collecting plate data.
DRAFT — not filed Proposed bill for the 90th Texas Legislature · Adds Texas Government Code §411.481 · Last updated November 5, 2026
The problem
Texas alerts — AMBER, Silver, CLEAR, and Blue — succeed or fail on one thing: whether someone spots the vehicle named in the alert, fast. The system was built on human eyes. Highway dynamic message signs carry the alert to the road, and drivers watch for the vehicle. In 2017, when Cayley Mandadi was killed, her killer drove past dozens of those signs — and no alert could be issued for Cayley at all, because she was fourteen months too old for an AMBER Alert and Silver Alerts were restricted to people 65 and older. Her mother, Alison Steele, closed that gap by getting the C.L.E.A.R. Alert passed.
Now the eyes themselves are going away. As cars take over more of the driving, the people in them stop watching the road — that is the point of the technology. The human eyeball network these alerts depend on gets thinner every year, and nothing replaces it.
What the bill does
The bill directs the Department of Public Safety (DPS) to publish a secure, digitally signed feed of every active AMBER, Silver, CLEAR, and Blue alert — all four from day one — and invites any connected vehicle or service to join voluntarily, at any level of automation. The technical implementation is set by DPS rulemaking: DPS leads, because it administers all four alerts, and the Texas Department of Transportation is a statutory consultee, not the rulemaker. The safeguards below are the price of access to the feed, and they are written into the statute itself, not left to rules.
A participating vehicle compares plates it sees against the alert list only, on the vehicle itself. Occupied vehicles notify their occupants, and the occupants decide whether to report. Unoccupied vehicles report automatically. If the vehicle itself is the one named in an alert: an unoccupied vehicle quietly notifies DPS, its remote assistance centre, and its owner, and keeps driving; an occupied vehicle makes no report about itself at all.
The phase-in is deliberate, because no machine-readable feed currently exists for any alert. DPS rules are due by June 1, 2028, and the manufacturer feed duty begins March 1, 2029 — with earlier launch permitted, alert by alert. The voluntary feed, with its binding safeguards, is the permanent base of the system. As a severable backstop, new model generations — only new model generations — could later be required to take part, with exemptions the Governor or a designee must grant for up to five years on a first request. Manufacturers certify their own compliance. Incentives to join early include good-faith immunity for reporters, credit for participation if the backstop ever takes effect, and alert capability counted in state fleet purchasing.
Why it works
Nothing here needs inventing. Alert feeds already reach car dashboards and navigation apps. And Texas law already directs DPS to recruit private companies to help spread alerts — Government Code §411.464 has said so since the CLEAR Alert was created. This bill simply extends that recruitment to vehicles. Participation is open to ordinary connected cars and apps — where the near-term sightings are — not only to the small number of highly automated vehicles.
Vehicles cannot receive Wireless Emergency Alerts — that system reaches phones, not cars — so the bill speaks of "connected services," the data connection vehicles already have.
Rights and safeguards
- There is no database. This bill is the opposite of the plate-reader databases Texans have been arguing about. Matching happens on the vehicle, in memory, against the short list of plates in active alerts.
- A non-match is never data. A plate that does not match exactly — including a partial plate — is a non-match: it is never collected, stored, or transmitted, by design rather than by promise. The statute prohibits collecting, storing, or transmitting non-alert plate data.
- A report is six fields and no more. Only the matched plate, an image of the vehicle seen, time, location, direction of travel, and the reporting vehicle's ID.
- An occupied vehicle never reports on itself. Occupants of a vehicle named in an alert are notified and decide for themselves whether to report a sighting; the car makes no report about itself.
- Breaking the data rules has teeth. A civil penalty, evidence derived from a violation cannot be used in court, and the participant loses access to the feed.
- Rules cannot dilute the safeguards. DPS rulemaking covers technical implementation only; the statute expressly bars rules from weakening the data protections.
How hard will this be to pass?
This is the most novel bill in the package: it asks a major industry to build something new, and the generation-triggered backstop will draw the strongest fight even though it is severable and years away. Privacy advocates will scrutinise anything that scans plates — fairly — and the bill's answer is architectural rather than rhetorical, which takes time to explain in a committee hearing. The voluntary design, the long phase-in, and the fact that the alerts themselves command broad support keep passage possible, but no one should champion this bill expecting an easy session.
Cost
Small. The state's cost is DPS building and running the feed. Participation is voluntary, the incentives are legal rather than cash, and there are no subsidies or tax abatements.
Reading on? Below this line the page goes deeper: first a fuller brief for advocates preparing to pitch this bill inside their own organisation, then a technical appendix for attorneys and legislative staff.
How this gap in the law actually plays out
Cayley Mandadi was killed on October 29, 2017. On the day she died, her killer drove past dozens of highway dynamic message signs — the signs Texas uses to tell everyone on the road to be on the lookout. But no alert could be issued for Cayley: she was fourteen months too old for an AMBER Alert, and Silver Alerts were restricted to people 65 and older. She fell into the gap between the two systems, and not one of those signs carried anything for her. Her mother, Alison Steele, closed that gap by getting the C.L.E.A.R. Alert passed — the alert for missing adults in danger.
Every Texas alert still rests on the same unstated assumption: somebody has to be looking. A sign works only if a driver reads it, remembers the vehicle, and recognises it in traffic. That assumption is expiring. As vehicles assume more of the driving task, drivers will spend less time looking out of their windows — not a failure of the technology, but the technology working as intended. The bill's findings put the answer plainly: the sensors and connected services of modern vehicles can replace that diminishing human observation — the vehicles' digital eyes can do the watching that drivers will no longer do — if the state publishes alert information in a form vehicles can use, and if participation is structured to protect the privacy of Texans.
Two halves make up the proposal, and advocates should keep them visibly separate. The display half — getting alert information onto dashboards — already exists in the market: alert feeds already reach infotainment screens and navigation apps, and Texas law already directs DPS to recruit private companies to help spread alerts. The matching half — a vehicle comparing the plates around it against the short list of plates in active alerts — is the new and contested step, and it is the half the safeguards are written for. Participation is open at any level of automation, including ordinary connected cars and apps, because that is where the near-term sightings are. The highly automated vehicles matter most over time, because only a machine that is itself watching the road can scan plates continuously without distracting a human driver. Do not overclaim near-term coverage: the rescue value in the first years comes mostly from ordinary connected vehicles joining voluntarily.
Likely criticism — and our answers
You will meet these arguments in committee, in the press, and possibly inside your own organisation. Each is stated in its strongest fair form. The expected sources are privacy and civil-liberties organisations (the Electronic Frontier Foundation's stated position is that automated license plate readers are mass surveillance and should be shut down; the ACLU has likewise called for ending license plate surveillance — both are documented positions on plate readers generally; neither organisation has taken a position on this bill), manufacturer and automotive associations (the Alliance for Automotive Innovation is on record demanding national standards instead of state-by-state vehicle regulation), incumbent plate-reader vendors, and some law-enforcement users of existing plate-reader systems, whose likely concerns are described below as inference from their public records. Naming a likely critic is a different thing from naming an ally: no critic is misrepresented by being expected to argue its own stated mission.
"However you dress it up, this is mass surveillance. You are authorising millions of cars to scan every plate around them — and function creep is not a risk, it is the historical pattern."
Stated at full strength, because the record behind it is real. Plate-reader systems sold on narrow promises have been searched for reasons far outside them: in May 2025, a Texas sheriff's office searched more than 83,000 plate-reader cameras nationwide with the stated reason "had an abortion." In 2026 the Governor ordered state agencies to halt state funding for the largest vendor's cameras, and the Comptroller barred grant funds he administers from buying major plate-reader products, saying the government has no business tracking where law-abiding Texans drive. The critics' conclusion — the only safe plate reader is no plate reader — follows from that record, and this bill does not ask them to pretend otherwise.
The answer is that every abuse in that record was an abuse of a database, and this bill prohibits the database. Matching happens on the vehicle, in volatile memory, against the short DPS-signed list of plates in active alerts — and against nothing else: the statute forbids loading any other list, including warrant, immigration, toll, or repossession lists. A plate that does not match exactly is never written to storage, never transmitted, never logged; there is nothing retained for a future official to search, share, or creep with. Expanding the list would require a new act of the Legislature, debated in the open — which is where that fight belongs. Breaking the data rules brings a civil penalty, makes evidence derived from the violation inadmissible in any proceeding, and costs the participant its access to the feed. Full endorsement from abolitionist quarters is not expected and should not be claimed; the design goal is narrower and honest — the specific harms the critics document (retention, sharing, searching) are architecturally impossible here.
"This is a Texas-specific software mandate on a national industry — preempted by federal law, a patchwork burden, and a cost priced into every car."
This is the argument the industry coalition runs against every in-vehicle requirement, most recently against a federal AM-radio mandate, and it would be formidable against a bill that conscripted manufacturers. This bill does not. The permanent program imposes no vehicle standard at all: the state publishes a feed, and the safeguards bind participants as a condition of access to the state's own feed — a state benefit, accepted voluntarily. State fleet provisions rest on the federal exception for vehicles a government buys for its own use and reach nothing else. The only duty in the bill is the severable backstop: it applies to new model generations only, never to a vehicle already sold and never as a retrofit, so compliance is designed in at a redesign — the cheapest point in a vehicle's life. A first-request exemption must be granted for up to five years; a manufacturer already participating voluntarily is deemed compliant and never needs the exemption machinery at all; and if a federal safety standard ever occupies the same ground, the duty suspends by operation of law. If a court struck the backstop entirely, the voluntary program continues untouched — the backstop is severable precisely so that this argument has almost nothing to kill.
"Moving cars will misread plates — constantly. A false 'MATCH' on a dashboard will get an innocent driver followed, confronted, or stopped."
The engineering premise is fair and the bill concedes it in its design. Camera plate-reading from a moving vehicle is best for vehicles ahead and behind, in daylight and fair weather; dirty and obscured plates will be missed, and partial reads will happen. That is why a partial or near plate is a non-match by statute — it goes nowhere, not to DPS, not to any centre. An exact match is presented to occupants labelled as a possible match, with the DPS vehicle description to check against, and the standing instruction is: call 911, do not approach, follow, or confront anyone. A match report is a tip — the statute says it is not probable cause, justifies no stop by itself, and must be verified by the receiving agency before anyone acts on it. Notice presentation is audio-first and may not mask or compete with a request by an automated driving system for the human to take over. Missed reads cost sightings; misreads are channelled to verification, not confrontation; and no occupant is ever obliged to do anything at all.
"Today the list is missing children. Tomorrow it is warrants, immigration, toll debt. And once the data exists, the government will simply demand it."
Mission creep is the strongest long-run argument against this bill, and the answer has to be structural, not a promise — promises are what failed in the plate-reader record. So: the data does not exist. A non-match is discarded in memory and may not be written, transmitted, sold, or logged by the participant or any vendor working for it; there is no archive for a future agency to subpoena, and the honest answer to "the government will demand the database" is that the statute forbids creating one. The alert list is the only list that may be loaded, and DPS rulemaking — where quiet expansion would otherwise happen — is expressly barred from authorising non-alert data collection, expanding the six report fields, treating a partial plate as a match, or altering the occupied/unoccupied response rules: the safeguards are statutory and not delegable. Even the exemption machinery cannot dilute them — a manufacturer exempt from the duty to participate is still fully bound by the data rules the moment it touches the feed. Adding a new category of list would take a new bill, in the open, where the critics quoted above will be heard. That is the fight they are entitled to — then, in public — rather than a reason to leave endangered people unfindable now.
Potential allies
These are the kinds of organisation whose missions and records align with this bill. Organisations are deliberately not named here. A group that found its own name on a bill page could reasonably read it as being cited as a supporter, and no organisation has committed to this bill. Named research is kept in the project's working papers; a category below means a natural conversation to have, not a position taken.
- Missing-persons and child-safety advocacy organisations — the constituency the alert systems exist for, including the regional alert organisations that run the activation process this program plugs into.
- Survivor-run victims' rights organisations and family groups — the coalition that carried the C.L.E.A.R. Alert itself; rescue legislation is their home territory.
- Family-violence and sexual-assault advocacy organisations — CLEAR cases are disproportionately intimate-partner abductions, and these are the standing Texas coalitions on that policy.
- Law-enforcement associations — police chiefs', sheriffs', and officers' associations routinely support alert and missing-person tools. Note the split risk honestly: some agencies are heavy users of existing plate-reader systems and may resist a no-retention precedent as a threat to their current programs, so this is a conversation to have early, not a commitment to assume.
- In-vehicle digital alert platforms — commercial providers whose business is delivering alerts into vehicles. Enthusiasm from this category is expected; their role is delivery infrastructure, and the open, published feed specification — available to any participant on the same terms — is the guard against the program becoming a favour to any single vendor.
DPS and TxDOT are institutional actors, not allies to be counted. DPS administers all four alerts and leads the rulemaking; TxDOT is the statutory consultee and operates the message signs. Their implementation questions will be the hardest-nosed in the process and should be welcomed early.
Prospective authors
To be published after re-verification. Candidates to approach — several members, identified from their records on transportation, alert, and privacy legislation in the 88th and 89th Legislatures — have been researched and are held in the project's working papers. Because the 2026 election changed the House, the governorship, and the Lieutenant Governorship, no names are published here until rosters and committee assignments for the 90th Legislature are verified in January. What can be said now: the strongest approach pairs the transportation subject-matter leadership with members who carried the C.L.E.A.R. Alert itself, and adds privacy-side coauthors from both parties to own the safeguard provisions.
Cost and implementation
The phase-in is deliberate, because no machine-readable feed currently exists for any Texas alert:
- September 1, 2027 — the Act takes effect.
- June 1, 2028 — DPS must have adopted the implementing rules (feed specification, matching standards, certification form, notice standards).
- March 1, 2029 — DPS's duty to publish the alert feed begins. DPS may launch earlier — in whole, or for any one or more of the four alerts — as the technical means become available.
- No compliance is measured against an unpublished feed. Participation is voluntary, no backstop duty is assessed for any period in which the feed was not published, and compliance is measured only against the feed as actually published.
DPS leads the rulemaking, because it administers all four alerts; TxDOT is a statutory consultee, and a statutory technical advisory committee (participants, platform providers, law enforcement, TxDOT, victim advocacy, independent technical experts) advises on the specification. The state's cost is building and running the signed feed and administering self-certifications and the committee — a modest information-technology and program-administration cost. For scale, the fiscal note on the bill that created the CLEAR Alert itself found no significant fiscal implication; the feed is a new cost on top of existing alert infrastructure and the Legislative Budget Board will score it, so no precise figure is asserted here. The incentives are legal rather than cash — good-faith immunity, advance compliance credit, fleet purchasing consideration — with no subsidy, tax abatement, or appropriation. Fleet provisions are capped in practice by a "no greater lifecycle cost" condition and waiver grounds. Costs to manufacturers under the voluntary program are zero by definition; under the backstop they are mitigated by the generation trigger, the shall-grant first exemption, and the compliance credit.
Talking points
- "The alert system was built on human eyes. The cars are taking over the driving — so let the cars do the watching too, under rules that protect every Texan's privacy."
- "No database, no retention, no tracking. A plate that does not match an active alert is discarded in memory — by law, not by promise."
- "This bill is the opposite of the plate-reader databases Texans have been arguing about. It prohibits the database."
- "The prosecutor always decides in a courtroom case; here, DPS always controls the list — signed, expiring, and limited to people Texas is actively looking for."
- "An occupied car never reports on the people inside it. The occupants decide. The state does not turn a family car into an informant."
- "Nothing is conscripted. Cars join voluntarily; the only duty is a severable backstop for future model generations, years away, with exemptions that must be granted on a first request."
Questions advocates ask
Does the state get a database of where I drive?
No. There is no database to get. A participating vehicle compares plates it sees against the active alert list on the vehicle itself, in memory. A non-match is never collected, stored, or transmitted — the statute prohibits it — and a match report contains six fields about the observed vehicle and nothing else, with no location history of the reporting vehicle attached.
Does my car have to take part?
No. Participation is voluntary for every vehicle and service, at any level of automation. A duty exists only as a severable backstop for new model generations offered for sale after the Act takes effect — never for a car already on the road, never as a retrofit — and first-request exemptions from it must be granted for up to five years.
What happens if my own car is the vehicle named in an alert?
If anyone is in it: the car tells its occupants about the alert and makes no report of any kind — whether to contact any authority is solely the occupants' decision. If the vehicle is unoccupied, it quietly notifies DPS, its remote assistance centre, and its owner — and keeps driving. Nothing in the program stops, holds, restricts, or redirects the vehicle, and no response ever includes pursuing or blocking any vehicle.
What about partial plates — a dirty plate, or an alert that only has part of the number?
A partial or wildcard correspondence is a non-match for every purpose of the program. It may not be transmitted to DPS, to a remote assistance centre, or to anyone else. Only an exact match counts.
Does a match mean the police can stop that car?
Not on the match alone. A match report is a tip: the statute states it is not probable cause, does not by itself justify a stop or detention, and must be verified by the receiving agency before enforcement action. Occupants are instructed to call 911 and not to approach.
Download the draft bill in Texas House format (PDF) — DRAFT, not filed
Current law
| Provision | What it does now |
|---|---|
| Gov't Code ch. 411, subch. L (§§411.351–411.359) — AMBER Alert | The statewide system for abducted children and missing persons with intellectual disabilities. Section 411.354 directs DPS to recruit broadcasters, private commercial entities, state and local governmental entities, the public, and other appropriate persons to assist — the recruitment architecture this bill works inside. |
| Gov't Code ch. 411, subch. M (§§411.381–411.389) — Silver Alert | Missing senior citizens (65+) and persons with Alzheimer's disease. Section 411.385 requires TxDOT to plan for alert information to be sent "through existing systems of dynamic message signs" — the channel this bill supplements. Section 411.384 carries the same recruitment duty for DPS. |
| Gov't Code ch. 411, subch. Q (§§411.461–411.470) — CLEAR Alert | Missing adults (18–64) in danger. Added by HB 1769 (86th Leg., 2019); formally named by HB 2677 (87th Leg., 2021). Section 411.463 makes the DPS director statewide coordinator; §411.464 is the "Department to Recruit Participants" section and the statutory hook for vehicle participation; §411.470 limits TxDOT's participation role. |
| Gov't Code ch. 411, subch. O (§§411.441–411.449) — Blue Alert | The alert for an offender who has killed or seriously injured a peace officer. (Section numbers verified; the subchapter letter is flagged for confirmation in Known seams, below.) |
| Gov't Code §411.464 and analogues (§§411.354, 411.384) | Every alert subchapter directs DPS to recruit participants; none conscripts manufacturers. Vehicle manufacturers and navigation platforms are squarely "private commercial entities" DPS is already told to recruit — the bill extends that recruitment to a new class of participant and adds the feed and the safeguards, rather than asserting a new theory of state power. |
| Transp. Code ch. 545, subch. J (§§545.451–.459) — automated vehicles | Texas's automated-vehicle framework (SB 2205, 85th Leg., 2017, since rewritten). As recodified effective September 1, 2025, §545.451 defines "automated driving system" by reference to SAE Levels 3, 4, and 5 and defines "minimal risk condition." The draft cross-references §545.451 rather than inventing its own automation definitions. |
| Plate data in Texas today | Texas has no comprehensive ALPR statute — a 2026 compilation counted at least 28 states with statutes expressly addressing plate readers or retention; Texas is not among them. Retention is currently a matter of agency policy, DPS access agreements, and federal law. Transp. Code ch. 730 (the DPPA-implementing chapter) governs disclosure of personal information from motor-vehicle records held by an agency; it does not regulate capturing plates from public roads. Gov't Code §552.130 excepts motor-vehicle title/registration information from public disclosure. The 89th Legislature's two comprehensive ALPR bills — a 48-hour general-destruction model with a private right of action, and a warrant-requirement model — were referred to committee and never received a hearing. |
| Wireless Emergency Alerts / IPAWS | WEA is delivered by wireless carriers to mobile handsets under FCC rules (47 C.F.R. Part 10); a vehicle is not a WEA device class. The bill therefore speaks of "connected services" — the vehicle's ordinary data connection. That alert feeds can drive in-vehicle displays is demonstrated, not theoretical: FEMA's IPAWS feed has been integrated with in-vehicle infotainment and mapping applications in production pilots. |
What belongs in statute — and what is left to DPS rule
The governing split: provisions that create or limit legal rights, impose safeguards, penalties, or duties are in the statute, where only the Legislature can change them. Machinery — formats, protocols, forms, and mechanics — is delegated to DPS rulemaking, because code would fossilise it. The statute expressly bars rules from diluting the safeguards.
| In the statute | Left to DPS rule |
|---|---|
| The data prohibitions: no collecting, storing, or transmitting non-alert plate data; matching only on the vehicle, only against the alert list; a partial plate is a non-match; no other list may be loaded (§411.474). | The feed specification: data format, digital-signature method, and transmission method for the alert feed (§411.481(a)(1)) — published as an open specification on the same terms to every participant. |
| Report content and responses: the six-field limit on match reports and the bar on attaching anything else (§411.475(d)–(e)); the occupied/unoccupied response rules for observed matches and for subject vehicles (§§411.475–411.476). | Matching implementation standards for on-vehicle matching under §411.474 (§411.481(a)(2)). |
| Enforcement: civil penalty liability and inadmissibility of evidence derived from a violation; suspension or revocation of feed access; and the express negatives — no criminal offence, no private right of action (§411.479). | Certification mechanics: the form of the manufacturer self-certification and the mechanics of its renewal on a material change (§411.481(a)(3)). |
| The duty and its exemptions: the generation-triggered backstop duty; shall-grant first exemptions up to five years; the rule that safeguards are not exemptible; Texas Register publication of exemption grants (Article 2). | Housekeeping mechanics: the purge schedule for the limited audit record a reporting vehicle may retain (§411.481(a)(4)); backstop generation-filing form and reclassification procedure (§411.481(a)(6)). |
| The non-delegation clause itself: a rule may not authorise non-alert data collection, expand report contents, treat a partial as a match, or alter the occupied/unoccupied responses (§411.481(c)). | Notice presentation standards for occupant notice, within the statute's own audio-first and do-not-approach requirements (§411.481(a)(5)). One item sits on the line and is flagged below: the civil penalty amount is set by rule under the draft as written. |
What the draft changes, section by section
- Article 1, §1.01 — findings. The Legislature finds that the four alerts depend on public observation historically supplied by drivers and TxDOT message signs; that as vehicles assume more of the driving task that human observation network will diminish; that vehicle sensors and connected services can replace it — "the vehicles' digital eyes can do the watching that drivers will no longer do" — only if the state publishes usable alert information and participation is privacy-structured; that the safeguards are architectural (on-vehicle matching, in memory, exact matches only); and that an occupied vehicle must never be made an instrument for reporting on its own occupants, on Fifth Amendment and Tex. Const. art. I, §10 grounds.
- New Gov't Code subch. R (§§411.471–411.481) — the Vehicle Alert Participation Program. §411.471 defines the operative terms: "alert" (all four subchapters), "alert feed," "alert list," "alert-pertaining information" (a closed set — feed contents, match reports, subject notifications; everything else a vehicle perceives is not alert-pertaining), "connected services" (expressly not WEA), "match" (exact equality; a partial or wildcard correspondence is not a match), "non-alert plate information," "occupied/unoccupied" (a vehicle that cannot determine occupancy is treated as occupied), "participant," and "subject vehicle."
- §411.472 — the alert feed. DPS shall publish, in real time and without charge, a machine-readable feed of every active alert under subchapters L, M, O, and Q that includes a plate number. Each entry is digitally signed and carries the alert identifier, type, plate number(s), the DPS-issued vehicle description, and expiry; entries must be deleted by participants at alert termination. §411.472(d) ties the existing §411.464 recruitment duty to the new participant classes.
- §411.473 — voluntary participation; conditions of access. Participation is voluntary at any level of driving automation, including none, for any vehicle or service with connected services. The safeguards bind the participant and any vendor or subprocessor at all times, regardless of any backstop exemption. A self-certification under §411.478 is the only precondition — no other certification, approval, or independent audit may be required.
- §411.474 — matching and the prohibition. Comparison only against the alert list, only on the observing vehicle, in volatile memory. A non-match may not be written, transmitted, sold, shared, logged, or used for any purpose. A partial correspondence is a non-match and may not be transmitted to DPS, a remote assistance centre, or any person. No other list may be loaded; feed data may be used for no purpose other than the authorised responses; and a participant may not collect, store, or transmit license plate information not pertaining to an active alert.
- §411.475 — match reports. Occupied observing vehicle: occupants are notified, and no report is transmitted unless an occupant affirmatively elects to report. Unoccupied observing vehicle: the report is transmitted automatically. A report may contain only the six fields — matched plate as read; image of the observed vehicle; time; location; direction of travel; reporting-vehicle identifier — and nothing may be attached (no other plate read, no location history, nothing derived from a non-matching read). The reporting vehicle does not retain the reported information after transmission (subject to the narrow audit carve-out flagged in Known seams). A match report is a tip: not probable cause, no justification for a stop by itself, no duty on any occupant, and verification is required before enforcement reliance. DPS routes reports to the requesting agency and may not retain them as a searchable archive of plate locations after the alert terminates.
- §411.476 — subject vehicles. An occupied subject vehicle presents the alert to its occupants and makes no report, notification, or self-response of any kind. An unoccupied subject vehicle silently notifies DPS, its remote assistance centre (if any), and its owner or authorization holder — with only the alert identifier, vehicle identifier, location, direction, and occupancy status — and otherwise continues operating without change. No response under the program ever includes stopping, restricting, redirecting, holding, pursuing, following, or blocking any vehicle.
- §411.477 — occupant notice. Notice must state the alert type in plain language, the issuing agency and alert identifier, the DPS vehicle description labelled as a possible match, and the instruction to call 911 and not to approach, follow, or confront any person or vehicle. Presentation is audio-first and may not mask, delay, or compete with an automated driving system's request to intervene. An occupant who does nothing incurs no penalty, and no record of the notice may be transmitted.
- §411.478 — self-certification. Participants certify compliance with §§411.474–411.477 in the form DPS prescribes, and renew on a material change. DPS may not impose a certification regime beyond self-certification.
- §411.479 — enforcement. A participant that violates §411.474 is liable to the state for a civil penalty in an amount prescribed by DPS rule, assessed per violation, recoverable by the attorney general. Evidence derived from a violation is inadmissible in any criminal or civil proceeding. DPS may suspend or revoke feed access, as an administrative consequence in addition to penalty and inadmissibility. A violation is not a criminal offence, and the subchapter creates no private right of action — both stated expressly.
- §411.480 — permanence and publicity limits. No sunset. No reporting requirement beyond the alert systems' existing reporting. DPS may not publish a list of participants, or the identity of any non-participant, for public pressure or any other purpose except as required by other law.
- §411.481 — rulemaking. DPS shall adopt rules under Gov't Code ch. 2001 covering the six machinery items in the table above, in consultation with TxDOT and the Vehicle Alert Technical Advisory Committee. Subsection (c) is the anti-dilution clause: rules may not authorise non-alert data collection, expand report or notification contents, treat a partial as a match, or alter the §§411.475–411.477 responses — "the safeguards … are statutory and are not delegable."
- §1.03 — conforming recruitment amendment. Section 411.464 and the corresponding provisions of subchapters L, M, and O are amended to include vehicle manufacturers, automated driving system providers, telematics providers, and in-vehicle digital alert service providers among the private commercial entities DPS shall recruit.
- Article 2 — the severable backstop. A duty to integrate the feed and perform the program's functions attaches to a "covered manufacturer" for each new model generation — the first model year a line is offered in Texas on a new platform or with a substantial redesign of body structure, electrical/electronic architecture, or sensor/compute architecture, as designated in the manufacturer's generation filing (trim, badging, styling, powertrain options within the same architecture, and software/OTA updates are not a new generation). The duty never applies to earlier generations, vehicles already sold, or post-sale modifications; no retrofit. Duty-holders are participants subject to all safeguards. Exemptions: on a first request the Governor or designee shall grant up to five years, on completeness-only review (covered-manufacturer status, identified generation and component, period within the cap, complete filing with a compliance plan); silence for 60 days is a grant. Extensions are discretionary, on a showing of steps taken and a firm new date; a timely extension request tolls expiry. Exemptions are personal, generation- and component-specific, terminate automatically on a §411.474 violation, and may be terminated for misrepresentation. Every request, grant, extension, denial, and termination is published in the Texas Register with the requester, generation, component, term, and promised compliance date. Safeguards are not exemptible: an exemption excuses only the duty, never §§411.474–411.477.
- §2.04 — federal-occupation circuit-breaker. If a federal motor vehicle safety standard takes effect governing alert display or ADS perception/matching behaviour, the backstop duty suspends by operation of law as to the governed aspect, pending conforming rulemaking or legislative direction. Nothing in Article 2 requires violating federal law or a non-identical standard within the meaning of 49 U.S.C. §30103(b). A suspension does not affect Articles 1 or 3.
- Article 3 — incentives. §3.01: good-faith immunity from civil damages for participants — and for occupants and remote assistants who report — for displaying alerts and transmitting authorised reports, with a wilful-or-wanton carve-out and no immunity for §411.474 violations; the section also records that no state certification mark for participation is established or authorised. §3.02: advance compliance credit — a participating generation is deemed in compliance with Article 2 (not exempt from it) for so long as participation continues, on the same specification that measures duty compliance. §3.03: state fleet procurement — alert capability added as a best-value factor (Gov't Code §2155.074) and a ch. 2158-style fleet-composition rule (fleets over 15 vehicles purchase alert-capable vehicles where available at no greater lifecycle cost, with comptroller waivers), applying across state government with no designated cohort, and confined to vehicles the government purchases for its own use. §3.04: the Vehicle Alert Technical Advisory Committee (not more than 24 members appointed by DPS — participants, platform providers, law enforcement, TxDOT, victim advocacy, independent technical experts), advisory only, with public meetings and records; the specification is adopted by DPS rule.
- Article 4 — applicability, severability, effective date, phase-in. Article 1 applies to alerts activated, and participation beginning, on or after the effective date and imposes no manufacturer duty; Article 2 applies only to new model generations first offered for sale in Texas on or after the effective date. Article 2 is expressly severable from Articles 1 and 3 — if it were held invalid or preempted in full, Articles 1 and 3 continue as the permanent program — with general severability under Gov't Code §311.032 for the rest. Effective date September 1, 2027. Phase-in (§4.04): DPS rules not later than June 1, 2028; the feed duty begins March 1, 2029, with earlier publication permitted in whole or alert by alert; and no duty is assessed for a period during which the feed was not published — compliance is measured only against the feed as published.
Legal analysis
- Express preemption (49 U.S.C. §30103(b)). Section 30103(b)(1) preempts a state standard only where it applies to the same aspect of performance as an in-effect Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard and is not identical to it. No FMVSS was found that governs receipt or display of missing-person alerts or in-vehicle plate matching, so on that footing §30103(b) is not triggered today. That negative is a research finding, not yet an exhaustive index search — it is flagged in Known seams and must be closed before filing; until then, a bill analysis should not assert it unqualifiedly. NHTSA interpretation practice adds that states retain authority over vehicle operation and use but may not use an operational rule to exclude federally compliant vehicles — which is why nothing in the draft conditions registration or lawful operation on the feature.
- The structure is the preemption defence. Article 1 imposes no vehicle standard at all: the state acts as publisher of a feed and conditions access to its own feed on safeguards. Article 3's fleet provisions rest on the own-use sentence of §30103(b)(1) — a state "may prescribe a standard for a motor vehicle or motor vehicle equipment obtained for its own use that imposes a higher performance requirement" — and §3.03(c) expressly confines them to the government's own purchases. Engine Manufacturers Ass'n v. South Coast Air Quality Management District, 541 U.S. 246 (2004), is distinguishable on exactly that point: the provision there had no own-use savings clause and the rules bound private fleets.
- Conflict preemption is the residual risk, and it is fenced. If a future federal AV framework occupies ADS perception behaviour, a state rule dictating continuous plate scanning is the most exposed element. The draft's answers are structural: plate matching under the permanent program is a voluntary condition, not a mandate; and the only duty-bearing article carries the §2.04 circuit-breaker (suspension by operation of law for any aspect a future FMVSS governs, reinforced by an identical-standard savings clause) plus express severability, so an adverse ruling reaches Article 2 only.
- Compelled speech. A mandate that a manufacturer display government content in its own interface — or run a government-specified matching algorithm — would invite compelled-speech and software-as-speech arguments, on doctrine that is unsettled for in-vehicle safety displays. The voluntary-participant structure moots the issue for the permanent program: no one is compelled to carry anything; participants accept display and safeguard terms as a condition of receiving a state feed. The argument survives only against severable Article 2.
- Fourth Amendment — the case law is moving, and the design sits on its strong side. In United States v. Porter, 170 F.4th 381 (5th Cir. Mar. 17, 2026), the Fifth Circuit held that law-enforcement use of a plate-reader system was not a Fourth Amendment search: no reasonable expectation of privacy in plates or movements on public roads, and intermittent reader points are not Carpenter-style comprehensive tracking (a certiorari petition has been filed). Contrary signals exist — United States v. Kyle (N.D. Okla.) held a warrantless search of historical plate-reader data unconstitutional, and Carpenter v. United States, 585 U.S. 296 (2018), remains the frame for comprehensive retrospective tracking. This program has none of the features those cases worry about: in the base program there is no government collection at all (a private vehicle compares plates locally); there is no retention, so no historical database can exist; and matching runs only against a contemporaneous, specific hot list — the use every line of authority treats as the legitimate core. The residual exposure is a future amendment expanding the list or adding retention, which is why the list limit and the prohibitions are statutory. Texas Constitution art. I, §9 could be read more protectively than the federal Fourth Amendment; no Texas appellate plate-reader holding was verified in the research, and the point is flagged for the author's counsel rather than resolved here.
- Fifth Amendment — the occupied subject vehicle. Compelling an occupied vehicle that is itself the subject of an alert to report itself would conscript the vehicle as an instrument against its own occupants. The findings (§1.01(7)) state the concern under the Fifth Amendment and Tex. Const. art. I, §10, and §411.476(a) answers it absolutely: an occupied subject vehicle makes no self-response of any kind. The governing line throughout the program is occupied versus unoccupied — not automation level.
- A match is not probable cause. Section 411.475(g) carries the anti-bootstrapping rule into the statute: a match report, standing alone, is not probable cause, justifies no stop or detention, imposes no duty on any occupant, and must be verified before enforcement reliance. The §3.01 immunity is drafted to match — it protects good-faith reporting and display, not stops made on unverified matches.
- DPPA. A plate number alone, unlinked to an identified person, is generally not "personal information" under the Driver's Privacy Protection Act or Transp. Code ch. 730, and the design never links non-match plates to persons at all. Match reports, once received, are handled by DPS under ch. 730 and CJIS rules — and §411.475(i) bars retaining them as a searchable archive of plate locations after the alert terminates.
- Driver distraction and HMI. Occupant notice competes for attention with the driving task — acutely at SAE Level 3, where the human may look away but must remain ready to resume driving. Section 411.477(b) writes the constraint into the statute: presentation is audio-first and may not mask, delay, or compete with an automated driving system's intervention request. Presentation standards are then set by rule inside that statutory limit (§411.481(a)(5)).
Known seams — flagged for the author and Legislative Council
Published here deliberately: a bill page that hides its drafting issues will not survive staff review, and these are mechanical rather than substantive.
- Civil penalty amount wholly delegated. Section 411.479(a) makes the penalty "an amount prescribed by the department by rule," assessed per violation, with no statutory amount, range, or cap. The liability itself is settled policy; the open-ended delegation will draw Legislative Council and nondelegation pushback, and Texas practice is to fix penalty amounts or caps in statute. Recommend a statutory amount or cap before filing.
- The FMVSS negative is unverified. The preemption analysis rests on no federal motor vehicle safety standard governing alert display or plate matching. That was reached by research, not by an exhaustive search of the FMVSS index (49 C.F.R. Part 571). The index search is owed before filing; if a covering standard is found, Article 2 requires re-examination (Articles 1 and 3 are unaffected).
- "Administering agency" is undefined (§2.03(f)). Article 2 does not specify the designation mechanic for "the governor's designee" — the options (naming DPS as administrator, or a written designation filed with the Secretary of State) are identified in the working analysis but undecided. Council should settle the mechanic and define the term.
- The audit-retention carve-out is a drafter addition (§411.475(f)). The design rule is "transmits and does not retain." The draft lets the reporting vehicle retain the fact that a report was made, the alert identifier, and the time — solely for auditing the participant's own compliance, purged on a DPS-rule schedule. None of the retained items is plate data, and some record is arguably necessary for self-certification to be auditable at all — but the carve-out is recorded here so the addition is a conscious choice, not a discovered one.
- False self-certification has no freestanding consequence. The teeth in the draft attach to actual violations (penalty, inadmissibility, loss of feed access — which also reaches a certification false in substance, since access is conditioned on compliance). Whether a false attestation, as distinct from a retention violation, should carry its own stated consequence is a decision for the author, flagged rather than assumed.
- Blue Alert subchapter letter carried in unverified. The draft cites "Subchapter O (Blue Alert)" in §411.471(1). The section numbers (§§411.441–411.449) are verified; the subchapter letter came from a secondary index and should be expressly confirmed against the current Chapter 411 index before filing.
- Cross-references need conforming to the recodified AV subchapter. The automated-vehicle subchapter was rewritten effective September 1, 2025 (the current map is Transp. Code §§545.451–.459, with "minimal risk condition" defined at §545.451(11)). Legislative Council should conform every cross-reference in the draft to the codified text in force on filing day.
- Participant immunity is drafted as new law on a negative. Section 3.01's good-faith immunity was drafted on the basis that no existing alert-participant immunity provision appears in the Chapter 411 subchapter maps. A full-text search of Chapter 411 should confirm the negative before the bill analysis describes the immunity as new.
- Texas Register publication and the no-publicity posture. Independent review flagged the visible tension between §2.03(f) (publication of exemption grants) and the program's no-publicity rules (no participant lists, no naming of non-participants, no added reporting, §411.480). The draft's position, which staff should be ready to defend: the no-publicity rules govern publicity about participation; publication under §2.03(f) covers the government's own exemption acts — the requester, generation, component, term, and promised compliance date — which are public-law acts of the Governor or a designee, not program marketing.
- Never-redesigned generations. The backstop is generation-triggered, so a vehicle line that is never substantially redesigned never acquires the duty, and the draft contains no calendar backstop for that case. Independent review noted the omission expressly: it is a known consequence of the trigger design as adopted, not an oversight to be discovered later.
- WEA citation carried from research. The 47 C.F.R. Part 10 citation for the Wireless Emergency Alerts framework should be confirmed at drafting; the substantive point (vehicles are not a WEA device class) is not in doubt.
Sources
- Texas Government Code ch. 411 (official statutes site, chapter index): statutes.capitol.texas.gov
- Gov't Code §411.461 (CLEAR Alert definitions): texas.public.law
- HB 1769 (86th Leg., 2019 — the CLEAR Alert Act), enrolled text: capitol.texas.gov; fiscal note (no significant fiscal implication): capitol.texas.gov
- HB 2677 (87th Leg., 2021 — CLEAR Alert naming), bill analysis: capitol.texas.gov
- HB 2083 (89th Leg. — the 48-hour ALPR destruction model), introduced text: capitol.texas.gov
- SB 2425 (89th Leg. — automated-vehicle framework), engrossed text: capitol.texas.gov
- United States v. Porter, 170 F.4th 381 (5th Cir. 2026): law.justia.com
- NHTSA interpretation on state authority over vehicle operation: nhtsa.gov
- Electronic Frontier Foundation, state legislative agenda on ALPR surveillance: eff.org
- Texas Policy Research, Texas ALPR policy and state models compilation: texaspolicyresearch.com