FERNDALE — The town of Ferndale’s relationship with Flock Velocity Cameras has ended.
The Ferndale Police Division launched a press release on social media on Nov. 13 saying that after contemplating neighborhood suggestions, it has ended its partnership with Flock.
“The Ferndale Police Division is dedicated to balancing moral requirements with neighborhood expectations whereas equipping investigators with efficient instruments to unravel crime,” police mentioned. “The Division will present updates to the general public as new data turns into out there. Thanks to the Ferndale neighborhood for sharing your voice.”
The choice comes after conversations and conferences the town and police have had about whether or not they’ll proceed to work with Flock and use the automated license plate readers. The ALPRs utilized by Ferndale seize photos of license plates to detect whether or not the automobile is concerned in an investigation and whether or not police have to conduct a visitors cease.
Ferndale put in greater than a dozen Flock cameras in February 2024, when the town was concerned in a pilot program to resolve whether or not working with the corporate yielded constructive outcomes.
Police indicated at a gathering final September that the cameras have yielded ends in a number of high-profile circumstances, together with shootings and murders.
The issue with Flock that many within the metropolis had was using knowledge assortment and the best way the coverage violated Ferndale’s personal coverage on ALPRs, when it comes to not sharing data with federal businesses.
In June 2025, Flock modified its coverage to ban searches associated to immigration and abortion system-wide, and to permit picture sharing if there’s an actual match when collaborating in a nationwide community search. As a result of Ferndale was signed up for a nationwide search, one other company that was additionally signed up may entry the town’s community and search for something so long as it had a license plate quantity. This led to issues amongst residents about what these businesses had entry to.
Capt. Casey O’Loughlin mentioned calling within the nationwide search when it wasn’t purported to was an issue for Flock, and he understands the division did not know they’d executed that.
A Flock Security consultant couldn’t be reached for remark on the time of writing.
O’Loughlin echoed Police Chief Dennis Emmi’s phrases in regards to the division’s perception within the significance of ALPR know-how.
“The division had spent a yr and a half learning the know-how, selecting a vendor, implementing a program, making a coverage, after which it took months to get all the pieces in place,” he mentioned. “There’s fairly a course of occurring. For sure roads you need to get permits from MDOT (the Michigan Division of Transportation). So it was a prolonged course of. It took lots of time and hours, and as soon as it was up and operating it proved helpful in some crucial research.”
The plan was for the town to have a number of conversations with the neighborhood in regards to the relationship with Flock, resulting in a metropolis council vote on Nov. 24 the place the council would resolve whether or not to maneuver ahead with the corporate.
Nevertheless, the Nov. 13 neighborhood assembly started with Emmi saying the division was terminating its relationship with Flock, basing the choice on all the pieces from the pilot program to conversations with Ferndale employees, the Metropolis Council and neighborhood members.
“I’m nonetheless a agency believer in ALPR know-how in terms of investigating crime in 2025,” mentioned Emmi. “That is commonplace know-how that is getting used throughout the nation, internationally. All of our neighbors are utilizing some type of ALPR know-how. So we actually need to focus and focus the dialog on utilizing this know-how in our neighborhood as we attempt to enhance security and remedy crime in our neighborhood.”
Mayor Raylon Leaks-Might was stunned when she first discovered that data may very well be shared with different businesses as a result of she was informed there can be no entry for different neighborhood businesses to make use of that data with out metropolis permission.
“I did not like that,” she mentioned. “I began to really feel much less assured about utilizing the ALPR service via Flock after that, as a result of I felt like (if) issues may occur with out my data, the data of the police, then it is most likely not the corporate we wished to cope with. Nevertheless, the police’s resolution to terminate that contract with Flock was really their resolution… and I wasn’t upset about it. I feel the neighborhood introduced up all types of data and issues about having a relationship with the corporate. And I discovered that even I began to have some issues about having a relationship with that firm.
Mayor Professional Tem Laura Mikulski mentioned she was towards persevering with to work with Flock earlier than the police division’s resolution.
“Flock is a really highly effective instrument, nevertheless it didn’t align with our ALPR coverage,” she mentioned. “Our ALPR coverage had said that we wished to guarantee that anybody we had been sharing our knowledge with, we had an MOU (memorandum of understanding) with them and that they had been in keeping with our place on how ALPRs are used, and sadly throughout this entire dialog with council and having a dialog with the general public, it emerged that Flock had shared our knowledge nationally, and which means we had been sharing our knowledge in full violation of our said coverage that had been adopted and vetted and permitted by council by our So It was an actual blow, and I feel Flock may very well be a great tool, however the unlucky actuality is that as a associate they weren’t a very good associate.’
The town has been researching a brand new ALPR system. One firm identify that has emerged is Axon, which provides police physique cameras and in-car cameras.
A dialogue and attainable vote on a brand new ALPR system was scheduled for the Metropolis Council assembly on Monday, Nov. 24, at 7 p.m., at Metropolis Corridor, 300 E. 9 Mile Street.
