Baylor Scott & White Health has installed dozens of Flock Safety license plate readers across its facilities, often multiple cameras at every entrance and exit. The system covers the main Temple campus and McLane Children's Hospital, recording every vehicle that arrives for care. No suspicion required. No consent asked. No HIPAA safeguards in place.
Take Action →Flock Safety cameras are deployed across Baylor Scott & White's Temple campus, often multiple cameras at every entrance and exit. The system covers the main hospital campus and McLane Children's Hospital, creating a comprehensive surveillance net around the entire health system's patient care areas. When someone pulls into a hospital parking lot, their vehicle is captured, processed, and stored, just like any other stop on a public street.
The Automated License Plate Readers (ALPRs) capture far more than license plates: time, date, GPS coordinates, vehicle make/model/color, a photograph of the vehicle, and distinguishing features like dents, bumper stickers, and roof racks. These become permanent searchable data points linked to every hospital visit.
Beyond the fixed ALPR cameras, Flock deploys mobile trailer units equipped with pan-tilt-zoom (PTZ) cameras and panoramic imaging. These are not passive license plate readers, they are designed to actively track people on foot and can zoom in close enough to read what is on a passerby's cell phone screen, messages, maps, apps, or any content visible on the display. No crime, no suspicion, and no warrant needed to point them at you.
The data is stored on Flock Safety's servers and accessible to Baylor Scott & White's security team, and potentially shared with both local and federal law enforcement.
Records are retained indefinitely unless the agency deletes them. There is no automatic expiration for patient visit data.
Flock's platform allows data sharing with partner agencies. Patients have no control, no notification, and no way to opt out.
When Baylor Scott & White signed Flock's contract, they granted the company something most people never think about: a perpetual, worldwide license to use and disclose patient location data, not just for law enforcement, but to "support and improve Flock's products and services."
"Customer hereby grants to Flock a limited, non-exclusive, royalty-free, irrevocable, perpetual, worldwide license to (a) use and disclose Customer Data to provide the Flock Services; and (b) use Customer Data to support and improve Flock's products and services."
Source: Flock Safety Customer Agreement, Section on Customer Data
There is no expiration date. No opt-out clause. No way for patients to demand their data be deleted from Flock's systems. Even if Baylor Scott & White cancels the contract tomorrow, Flock retains the right to keep using that location data forever.
Flock can share, sell, or license patient location data to partners anywhere in the world. There are no geographic restrictions on how this data moves or who it reaches.
"Support and improve Flock's products and services" is broad language. It could include training AI models on patient visit patterns, building behavioral profiles, or selling aggregated location data to data brokers, all without patient consent.
Patients never signed anything. They never agreed to Flock tracking their visits. They never consented to their location data being used for product development, sold to third parties, or shared with companies that have nothing to do with law enforcement.
Imagine a cancer patient whose vehicle is photographed entering Baylor Scott & White. Flock's contract gives them the right to use that location data to "improve their products." That data could be:
Patients have no way to know if this happens. No way to opt out. No legal recourse. And no one to hold accountable, because the data they never consented to share is now Flock's to use, forever.
HIPAA protects your health information. But it doesn't protect the license plate of the car you drove to the hospital, even though that plate reveals where you went, when you went, and how often you went. And that is exactly what Flock cameras are capturing.
A vehicle photographed entering a family planning clinic or OB/GYN wing reveals private health information. Flock has no mechanism to distinguish this from a regular parking lot.
Visiting a psychiatric facility or addiction treatment center is deeply sensitive information. Tracking who arrives and leaves creates a surveillance record of someone's most private health decisions.
Patients visiting infectious disease clinics or testing centers are being photographed and logged. Their visit history becomes part of a database they never consented to.
ER visits for sensitive conditions, domestic violence, overdose, trauma, are recorded. The data trail could be subpoenaed, shared, or breached.
HIPAA protects health information, medical records, diagnoses, prescriptions. A license plate and a photo of a car are not health information on their own. That means Flock's parking data falls outside HIPAA's protections entirely, regardless of whether it's at a hospital.
The real danger is what happens when that data is connected to patient identities. If Baylor Scott & White links a license plate to a patient's name and visit reason, that combined dataset becomes protected health information, but the hospital has no mechanism to protect it, no way to audit who accesses it, and no ability to prevent Flock from sharing it with law enforcement or other agencies. Baylor Scott & White may be creating a HIPAA exposure through a vendor it doesn't control and a data stream it can't secure.
As reported by Footnote4a, nurses and healthcare workers are raising alarms that Flock cameras in hospital parking lots create a parallel surveillance system that tracks patient movements, information that should remain confidential under medical ethics and patient trust, but is now being logged by a private surveillance company with no healthcare compliance obligations.
When patients know their arrival and departure are being recorded, it changes their behavior. And in healthcare, behavior change driven by fear is dangerous.
People with sensitive health needs, reproductive health, mental health, addiction treatment, may avoid or delay seeking care if they believe their visit is being surveilled. This is not hypothetical. Studies show stigma and privacy concerns reduce healthcare-seeking behavior.
Flock Safety has faced multiple data breach incidents and legal challenges. If hospital patient visit data is exposed, it could reveal the health status of hundreds or thousands of individuals, their car, their visit time, their department.
Under HIPAA, patients can request their medical records and demand corrections. But Flock's parking data is not covered by HIPAA. Patients have no right to know if their vehicle was photographed, no right to delete it, and no right to know who has accessed it.
Healthcare is built on trust. Patients need to feel safe walking into a hospital without being tracked. Flock cameras turn a place of healing into a place of surveillance, and that trust, once broken, is nearly impossible to rebuild.
Patients deserve privacy. Families deserve peace of mind. Healthcare workers deserve to treat patients in an environment of trust, not surveillance.
Guest/Patient Relations: 254.724.3035
Main Line: 254.724.2111
Online: bswhealth.com/contact-us/patient-relations
Ask to file a formal concern about Flock Safety surveillance in hospital parking lots.
Health Facility Compliance Group:
Email: hfc.complaints@dshs.texas.gov
Mailing:
Health Facility Compliance Group (MC1979)
Texas Department of State Health Services
P.O. Box 149347
Austin, TX 78714-9347
File a formal complaint about patient privacy concerns at a licensed health facility.
Board President: Pete McCanna, MD
Email: board@bswhealth.com
Address:
Baylor Scott & White Health
1 Baylor Plaza
Waco, TX 76706
Write to the Board of Trustees about the Flock Safety contract and its impact on patient privacy.
These organizations are fighting surveillance technology and protecting civil liberties nationwide.
Disclaimer: This website is an independent advocacy and public interest effort. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, sponsored by, or connected to Baylor Scott & White Health, its subsidiaries, affiliates, or any of its hospitals or health system components. The name "Baylor Scott & White" is used solely for descriptive and referential purposes to identify the health system being discussed in this advocacy context.
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The information presented on this site is for educational and advocacy purposes. It does not constitute legal advice. If you have questions about your rights regarding surveillance or healthcare privacy, consult a qualified attorney or your state's patient advocacy organization.