Are school bus cameras meant for ‘Big Brother’ surveillance?
Seven months after delaying a plan to equip school buses with exterior AI-powered cameras, the Clark County School District insists the program isn’t dead, even as new concerns come to light.
In February, the district pulled an item from the school board agenda to award a contract to bus camera vendor Verra Mobility, following a protest by competitor BusPatrol. At the time, schools Superintendent Jhone Ebert cited the emergence of “complex operational and administrative questions” regarding a plan to catch on camera, and then ticket, scofflaw drivers who blow by buses as they load and unload students.
The district is still determining whether to install the cameras, often referred to as “stop-arm” cameras because they capture images of vehicles passing when the bus arm with a stop sign is extended.
It continues to look into whether school police are authorized to ticket outside a school zone, how many officers would be needed to review camera footage, and whether the tickets would clog the court system, chief engagement officer Kirsten Searer said in a statement to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
Add to the list the question of how the bus cameras might by deployed in the future, as concerns increase across the country about Big Brother-style surveillance aided by artificial intelligence.
Both BusPatrol and Verra Mobility state that their systems are not designed for the type of continuous monitoring that has been linked to abuse. However, civil rights organizations are voicing concerns about the potential for bus cameras to be tied into broader surveillance systems.
“In the past, I’ve seen companies floating the idea of integrating the school bus cameras – and various other cameras, too – with ALPR surveillance systems like Flock, like Axon,” said attorney Michael Soyfer with the Institute for Justice, a nonprofit public interest law firm.
ALPR stands for automatic or automated license plate readers. ALPR cameras capture images of license plates and vehicles, which are then stored in a database. The plate numbers are checked against law enforcement databases for criminal activity, such as a stolen vehicle or a missing person.
“We’re less worried about cameras that are used … for limited purposes, and data is only retained if they capture someone suspected of committing a crime,” Soyfer said.
What he described is the model for bus cameras authorized under a new Nevada law.
But he added, “There is always that danger of mission creep, that cameras used for one purpose will be repurposed by police for purposes much broader than intended.”
ALPR cameras are coming under increasing scrutiny. The Institute for Justice says it has cataloged more than 200 incidents of ALPR abuse nationwide, including stalking of romantic partners as well as wrongful stops and detentions.
‘Roaming surveillance vehicles’
In late May, 404 Media, a digital publication focused on technology, reported that leaked BusPatrol documents show that the company has plans to turn its tens of thousands of bus cameras nationwide into ALPRs, “capturing the location of every vehicle the buses drive past, and to give that data to law enforcement.”
The report states, “The plan will essentially transform school buses into roaming surveillance vehicles.”
In August, BusPatrol President Justin Meyers told KDKA-TV in Pittsburgh, where public schools are equipped with BusPatrol cameras, that the report was “not accurate.”
In a text message to the Review-Journal, Meyers wrote, “BusPatrol’s technology is highly regulated by state law and used solely for the limited purpose of enforcing school bus stop-arm laws and helping protect children. The system only processes evidence when a school bus is stopped with its warning lights and stop arm engaged for children boarding or exiting and only captures that evidence for the purposes of enforcing stop-arm violations. It does not continuously scan license plates, track vehicle movements, or conduct mass surveillance — practices that are inconsistent with our mission and role as a trusted safety partner.”
The Clark County School District is aware of the 404 Media report, according to Felicia Gonzales, deputy superintendent of business operations.
“All information is being considered as we decide whether to move forward with bus stop arm cameras,” she said in an email.
A blog post on BusPatrol’s website suggests that the potential, if not the intent, might exist for more extensive monitoring. The post states that BusPatrol cameras are “always on.”
“The school bus camera or stop-arm camera system is continuously activated on BusPatrol school buses. As the bus driver turns the engine on, the camera begins to record in HD DVR. All seven exterior cameras record automatically. The bus’s computer automatically sends the footage over our secure cellular LTE network to BusPatrol headquarters for review.”
In a text exchange with the Review-Journal, Meyers did not comment specifically on the blog post.
On its website, Verra Mobility links to the 404 Media report while emphasizing that its bus camera programs are not the ones referenced.
In an email to the Review-Journal, a spokesperson for Verra Mobility wrote that its technology is “NOT used for broad vehicle identification,” that “school bus stop arm technology is triggered when a school bus is stopped and the stop arm is deployed,” and that “the cameras only work at specific locations (bus stops) and do not continuously record traffic.”
Spokesperson Michele Voelkening, managing partner with the PMA Agency, also wrote that “the cameras are not connected to each other or other events, and do not build a searchable database of vehicle movement,” and that “Verra Mobility’s school bus stop arm program does not share or sell data to any third party.”
Meanwhile, Jeff Clark, the school district’s chief of police, in late August paused the district’s use of the Flock Safety camera network until he completes a review of its use. The district has had access to the camera system since August 2024, it stated.
The Metropolitan Police Department has about 180 Flock Safety cameras and 130 Motorola cameras stationed throughout the valley, Clark County Sheriff Kevin McMahill recently told the Review-Journal. Police also rely on images from more than 300 private cameras to solve crimes, he said.
Gloves have come off
In Clark County, the stakes are high for the bus camera vendors.
Based on a pilot program with BusPatrol last year, the district has estimated that in its first year, a bus camera program could generate $40 million in ticket revenue to be divided between the vendor and the district. The district would use its share of funds on program costs and other safety programs, as outlined under the law. It predicts that revenues would decline as drivers change their behavior to avoid getting ticketed.
On Dec. 22, BusPatrol sent a notice of protest regarding the district’s recommendation to award the contract to Verra Mobility. It stated that the district provided Verra Mobility with “undue favorable treatment during the evaluation process.”
In its response to BusPatrol on Jan 14, the district denied the claim, while stating that “Verra Mobility’s proposal provides a substantially more favorable financial return to CCSD compared to BusPatrol’s.”
BusPatrol proposed that the district receive 60 percent of the ticket revenue; Verra proposed 75 percent. However, under Bus Patrol’s proposal, the company would pay law enforcement’s costs for reviewing the footage.
Behind the scenes, the gloves have come off, shows new documents obtained by the Review-Journal through a public records request to the district.
On Feb. 20, BusPatrol filed an appeal of the district’s recommendation to award a contract to Verra Mobility and in further support of its protest of the decision. The appeal letter references text exchanges between district officials that BusPatrol obtained through a public recor