Take Action on Upcoming Austin City Council Agenda Items
There were two notable items that appeared on the Austin City Council agenda for the meeting of August 28, 2025 which would have approved contracts for mass surveillance technologies that would be used to gather data on the residents of Austin. Fortunately, we were able to get the coalition to move quickly on applying pressure on the council, and they pulled the items from the agenda last minute. However, the city council will be reconsidering these agenda items in September.
The items of concern are as follows:
Item 32 (coming up on the September 11 agenda)
Item 32 (formerly known as Item 67 from the 8/28 agenda) would spend $250k in the middle of a budget crisis to give Austin-based AI company Valkyrie Intelligence access to a tremendous amount of very personal data about Austinites without their consent, ultimately aiming at building a predictive AI modeling tool used to anticipate who in Austin may become homeless in the future.
Learn more details about this item and how to take action below.
Item 33 from the August 28 Agenda
Item 33 was a proposal to spend $400k from the Parks and Recreation Dept budget on AI-assisted mass surveillance cameras at our local parks facilities. The proposal was for 3 years with an initial cost of $400k with possible extensions up to 5 years with a max cost of $2 million taxpayer dollars.
Learn more details about this item and how to take action below.
Agenda Item 32 (Formerly Item 67) Breakdown
The proposal would spend $250k on a “research-phase step of a process” to essentially asks Council to fund a research project exploring what Austin could do with this vendor’s services, and if we want to, how to collect the right data for that project to be successful.
The predictive model being suggested is emulating Los Angeles’s prevention program (The Homelessness Prevention Unit: A Proactive Approach to Preventing Homelessness in Los Angeles County), the results of which will not be available until 2027. Los Angeles is working with California Policy Lab, a nonprofit housed at UC, who are public about their values and expertise in privacy protecting data-sharing and focused on supporting local governments with progressive programs.
Austin is proposing to give our sensitive data to Valkyrie Intelligence, a company with deep ties to the military industrial complex, who has never had a contract with a municipality before. Their privacy policy explicitly acknowledges that they may disclose personal information to public authorities for national security or law enforcement purposes. Their sister product Andromeda comes out of the CEO's work with U.S defense/intelligence agencies, alongside other corporations like Palantir.
Valkyrie claims the data they collect doesn’t feed into their own systems, but the company has a troubling lack of expertise in their privacy policies. Their website states that Valkyrie “complies with the EU-US Privacy Shield Framework,” a defunct policy that was invalidated in 2020. (They also claim they rely on a federal security standard, NIST standard 800171 revision 2, however the NIST standard doesn’t cover most of the data at issue and is more related to security protocols than privacy policies.)
Turning over sensitive data records without our consent and integrating them into a large database of personal profiles (LA's model relies on ER visits, crisis care, substance use, arrests, other individual records) handled by a for-profit corporation is irresponsible and violates our individual privacy rights. To be clear: This is not an opt-in program, this data would be collected and profiled without the consent of our residents.
How to Take Action
Send a BCC email with your thoughts to the following decision makers:
Jesus.Aguirre@austintexas.gov; Jason.Lopez@austintexas.gov; Sharon.Mays@austintexas.gov; guillermo.balderrama@austintexas.gov; Solomon.Ortiz@austintexas.gov; Lizette.Melendez@austintexas.gov; Ben.Leffler@austintexas.gov; carrie.smith@austintexas.gov; Colleen.Pate@austintexas.gov; sara.barge@austintexas.gov; zo.qadri@austintexas.gov; Mike.Siegel@austintexas.gov; marc.duchen@austintexas.gov; district10@austintexas.gov; ryan.alter@austintexas.gov; Jose.Velasquez@austintexas.gov; district4@austintexas.gov; Paige.Ellis@austintexas.gov; Krista.Laine@austintexas.gov; natasha.madison@austintexas.gov; Vanessa.Fuentes@austintexas.gov; TC.Broadnax@austintexas.gov; Genesis.Gavino@austintexas.gov; louisa.brinsmade@austintexas.gov; max.lars@austintexas.gov; kirk.watson@austintexas.gov; Melissa.Beeler@austintexas.gov
Include in the subject line: Item 32 from 8/28 original agenda
Need help with what to say? Speak from the heart!
Personal messages, even short ones, make a much bigger impact then pre-written mass emails and petitions.
Feel free to tell them:
You do not consent to your data being used to anticipate whether you may become homeless in the future
You would prefer they spend the $250k on directly housing the homeless Austinities we already know about
You do not want to give taxpayer money to an ai tech company with ties to the military industrial complex
Even if they came up with a shared privacy agreement with the vendor, the vendor cannot totally guarantee that our highly sensitive data will never be leaked or hacked by bad actors
Maybe they should just open up a google form for Austinities to request aid with their rent, if they are worried about possibly-future-homeless Austinities
We could just wait until 2027 to see how successful the Los Angeles model is before we pour money into a research project to not actually solve a problem
Still want to help?
Find your city council member here and make a call to their office! Find phone numbers here.
Agenda Item 33 Breakdown
Item 33 proposes spending $400k - $2 million taxpayer dollars on AI-assisted mass surveillance cameras at Austin Parks and Recreation facilities (parks and pools).
Cost & Timeline: Initially, $400,000 will come out of the Parks and Recreation department budget for this surveillance program. The program will last 3 years, with a possible extension of 2 years and a max cost of $2 million taxpayer dollars.
City Budget Context: Austin City Council Members are calling for a vote to raise our taxes because of a "budget deficit" yet they just approved an increase to the APD budget of $26 million in the latest general budget. Now, the City is proposing that we spend $2 million on mass surveillance ai-assisted technology for our parks and pools.
Impact on immigrants and POC: We are deeply concerned about the safety of our immigrant and Hispanic community members who are being targeted by ICE. Texas has the highest number of ICE kidnappings in the United States - over 90,000 people taken from their families. Due to the passage of state-level executive orders and legislation,* any data collected by this technology will be shared with ICE, facilitating these racist and unconstitutional mass deportations which are disappearing our neighbors and terrorizing our community.
*such as SB 8 passed in the Texas Legislature during the 2025 regular session
We are also concerned about the impact of mass surveillance on families trying to enjoy our city's park and pools. We are concerned that installing AI-assisted mass surveillance camera will create a hostile environment for youth and communities of color, driving them out of our shared community spaces.
Impact on unhoused folks: In other cities where similar measures have been implemented, it has led to increased criminalization of unhoused folks. Here in Austin, the City "cannot afford" to put homeless Austinities in safe housing, but apparently we can afford to criminalize them and drive them out of our city parks and shared spaces.
The language of Item 33: "Authorize a contract for mobile security cameras and monitoring for the Parks and Recreation Department with LiveView Technologies dba LVT, for an initial term of three years with up to two 1-year extension options in an amount not to exceed $2,000,000. Funding: $400,000 is available in the Operating Budget of the Parks and Recreation Department. Funding for the remaining contract term is contingent upon available funding in future budgets."
Who is LiveView Technologies?
LiveView Technologies (LVT) is a video surveillance company based in Orem, Utah. It was founded by Ryan Porter and Bob Brenner in 2005. The company announced its $50 million Series B round in June 2022. Sorenson Capital, Pelion Ventures, The Larry H. Miller Group, and Lead Edge Capital are funders.
How to Take Action
Send a BCC email with your thoughts to the following decision makers:
Jesus.Aguirre@austintexas.gov; Jason.Lopez@austintexas.gov; Sharon.Mays@austintexas.gov; guillermo.balderrama@austintexas.gov; Solomon.Ortiz@austintexas.gov; Lizette.Melendez@austintexas.gov; Ben.Leffler@austintexas.gov; carrie.smith@austintexas.gov; Colleen.Pate@austintexas.gov; sara.barge@austintexas.gov; zo.qadri@austintexas.gov; Mike.Siegel@austintexas.gov; marc.duchen@austintexas.gov; district10@austintexas.gov; ryan.alter@austintexas.gov; Jose.Velasquez@austintexas.gov; district4@austintexas.gov; Paige.Ellis@austintexas.gov; Krista.Laine@austintexas.gov; natasha.madison@austintexas.gov; Vanessa.Fuentes@austintexas.gov; TC.Broadnax@austintexas.gov; Genesis.Gavino@austintexas.gov; louisa.brinsmade@austintexas.gov; max.lars@austintexas.gov; kirk.watson@austintexas.gov; Melissa.Beeler@austintexas.gov
Include in the subject line: Item 33 from 8/28 original agenda
Need some tips with what to say?
Personal messages, even short ones, make a much bigger impact then pre-written mass emails and petitions.
Tell them if any of these points reflect your concerns:
You do not want to spend $400k from the PARD budget on ai-assisted cameras - you would rather use this money to fix up our parks!
You do not want to spend up to $2 million over 3-5 years on pre-warrant mass surveillance at our parks and pools
Pre-warrant mass surveillance is a violation of 4th amendment of the US constitution
You are concerned that installing these cameras will lead to an increase in criminalization of homeless folks
You are concerned that installing AI-assisted mass surveillance cameras will create a hostile environment for youth and communities of color, driving them out of our shared community spaces.
You are concerned that the governor will force the City of Austin to share this data with ICE, leading to more kidnapping in Austin, or that ICE will get the data directly from the vendor and bypass the city altogether
Still want to help?
Find your city council member here and make a call to their office! Find phone numbers here.