Ferndale will look to continue using automated license plate readers in the city by finding another partner to use its camera system.
By: Mike Koury | Woodward Talk | Published November 20, 2025
FERNDALE — The city of Ferndale’s relationship with Flock Safety cameras has come to an end.
The Ferndale Police Department released a statement on social media Nov. 13 that, after reflecting on feedback from the community, it was ending its partnership with Flock.
“The Ferndale Police Department aims to balance ethical standards with community expectations while equipping investigators with effective tools to solve crime,” police stated. “The Department will provide updates to the public as new information becomes available. Thank you to the Ferndale community for sharing your voice.”
The decision comes after conversations and meetings that the city and police have had on whether to continue working with Flock and use its automated license plate readers. The ALPRs used by Ferndale capture images of license plates to detect whether the vehicle is involved in an investigation and if police should proceed with a traffic stop.
Ferndale installed over a dozen Flock cameras in February 2024, when the city was involved in a pilot program to decide if working with the company brought positive results.
The Police Department detailed in a meeting this past September that the cameras did help yield results in several high-profile cases, including shootings and homicides.
The issue with Flock that many in the city had was its use of data collection and how its policies violated Ferndale’s own policies on ALPRs, in terms of not sharing information with federal agencies.
In June 2025, Flock changed its policy so that searches related to immigration and abortion were prohibited systemwide, and image sharing is granted if there is an exact plate hit when participating in a nationwide network search. Because Ferndale was opted into a national lookup, another agency that also was opted in could access the city’s network and look anything up as long as it had a plate number. This brought concern from residents on what could be accessed by these agencies.
Capt. Casey O’Loughlin said the national lookup being turned on when it wasn’t supposed to be was a concern with Flock, and it’s his understanding that the department didn’t know they had done that.
A representative from Flock Safety could not be reached for comment at press time.
O’Loughlin reiterated Police Chief Dennis Emmi’s words about the department’s belief in the importance of ALPR technology.
“The department had put a year and a half into studying the technology, picking a vendor, implementing a program, building a policy, and then it took months just to get things installed,” he said. “There’s quite a process. You have to get permits from MDOT (the Michigan Department of Transportation) for certain roads. So it was a lengthy process. It took a lot of time, a lot of hours, and once it was up and running, it proved helpful in some very important investigations.”
The plan was for the city to hold multiple conversations with the community on its relationship with Flock, leading to a vote by the City Council on Nov. 24, where the council would decide whether to continue with the company.
However, the community meeting on Nov. 13 began with Emmi announcing that the department was severing its relationship with Flock, basing the decision on everything from its pilot program to conversations with Ferndale staff, City Council and community members.
“I am still an ardent supporter of ALPR technology in terms of investigating crime in 2025,” Emmi said. “This is standard technology used across the country, internationally. All of our neighbors are using some type of ALPR technology. So, we really do want to focus and pivot the conversation to the use of this technology in our community as we try to improve the safety and solve crime in our community.”
Mayor Raylon Leaks-May was surprised when she first learned that information could be shared with other agencies, as she had been told that there would be no access to other community agencies to be able to utilize that information without the city’s permission.
“I didn’t like that,” she said. “I was starting to feel not as confident about utilizing the ALPR service through Flock after that because I felt that (if) things could happen without my knowledge like that, the Police Department’s knowledge like that, then it’s probably not a company we wanted to go with. However, the Police Department’s decision to end that contract with Flock was actually theirs … and I wasn’t upset about it. I think that the community was bringing up all kinds of information and concerns regarding having a relationship with the company. And I found that even I started to have some concerns with having a relationship with that company.”
Mayor Pro Tem Laura Mikulski said she had been leaning against continuing the partnership with Flock before the Police Department’s decision.
“Flock is a very powerful tool, but it didn’t align with our ALPR policy,” she said. “Our ALPR policy had stated that we wanted to make sure that anybody that we were sharing our data with, we had an MOU (memorandum of understanding) with them and that they aligned with kind of our stance on how ALPRs are used, and unfortunately it came out during this whole process of having conversation with council and having a conversation with the public that Flock had shared our data nationally, and that means that we were sharing our data completely in violation of our stated policy that was adopted by council and had been vetted and approved by our police force. So, it was a real gut punch, and I think that Flock could be a beneficial tool, but the unfortunate reality is, as a partner, they weren’t a good partner.”
The city has been looking into a new ALPR system. One company name that has come up is Axon, which provides the Police Department’s body cameras and in-car cameras.
A discussion and possible vote on a new ALPR system was scheduled for the City Council’s meeting at 7 p.m. on Monday, Nov. 24, at City Hall, 300 E. Nine Mile Road.