What we can verify now

Detroit is not operating a small, single-vendor camera program.

A city presentation dated April 24, 2025 listed 566 fixed or portable LPR devices: 262 Flock, 219 Motorola and 85 Genetec. It separately listed Genetec mobile readers in 55 vehicles. That presentation is a dated official inventory—not proof that every listed device remains active today.

Detroit Police Department: 2025 LPR presentation (PDF)

In a March 10, 2026 response to police commissioners, DPD still identified Flock, Motorola and Genetec LPR systems among the surveillance and data-collection systems it used or accessed. The response did not provide a current device count.

DPD response concerning data sharing, March 10, 2026 (PDF)

The Flock contract runs through June 3, 2029

Detroit City Council materials for May 21, 2024 describe contract 6006209 with Flock Group, Inc.:

  • total authorized amount: $6.25 million;
  • funding: a state grant;
  • term: council approval through June 3, 2029;
  • planned scale: LPR units at up to 340 locations selected by the city;
  • connection: video feeding into DPD’s Real Time Crime Center.

“Up to 340 locations” is a contract scope, not a verified count of installed or active cameras.

Detroit City Council contract report, May 21, 2024 (PDF)

City contract record 6006209 (PDF)

Leonardo/Selex bid on the project but did not receive the award

The same official May 2024 report lists Selex ES, Inc.—the legal subsidiary associated with Leonardo’s ELSAG product line—among eight bidders. Selex received 17 evaluation points. The report says Motorola was initially selected but the award changed to Flock after a bid violation was reviewed.

This establishes that Leonardo/Selex participated in Detroit’s procurement. It does not establish that Detroit purchased Leonardo equipment, ELSAG software, EOC Plus or the product now called SignalTrace.

DPD’s March 2026 surveillance response names Flock, Motorola and Genetec LPR systems; it does not name Leonardo, ELSAG, Selex, EOC Plus or SignalTrace. We have not found another official Detroit record verifying local SignalTrace use.

The losing Selex proposal is still a useful public-record target. It may show which products were offered, whether electronic-signal collection was proposed and whether Detroit received a demonstration, test or technical discussion that did not become part of the final award.

What SignalTrace does and what is verified in Metro Detroit →

The separate Motorola contract reached its listed end date

City contract 6004555 authorized $5 million for Motorola license-plate-recognition equipment and lists an end date of June 30, 2026.

The end date alone does not prove what happened next. We have not yet verified whether Detroit extended or replaced that agreement, retained purchased equipment under a different arrangement, disabled the system, or continued using related services through another contract.

City contract record 6004555, Change Order 3 (PDF)

That is a high-value records question because changing vendors or contract numbers is not the same as ending the underlying surveillance capability.

Why current camera totals differ

Recent reporting cited an independent DeFlock map estimate of 449 DPD-operated LPR cameras, including Flock, Motorola and Genetec devices. That figure does not match the 566 fixed-or-portable devices in DPD’s April 2025 presentation.

The difference may reflect timing, mapping coverage, removals, installation status, device classifications or other methodology differences. We are not treating either number as a verified September 2026 live inventory.

Outlier Media: How Detroit police use Flock cameras, September 17, 2026

The useful next step is a dated inventory from DPD that identifies vendor, device type, ownership, operational status and location without exposing sensitive credentials or security details.

What current reporting says about searches and retention

Outlier Media reported that records collected through the independent FlockWatch project showed at least 26,330 Detroit officer searches reaching other Flock networks between June 2025 and May 2026. The report says those searches appeared in records obtained from agencies outside Detroit; DPD did not provide its own total search count.

The same report says a Detroit transparency disclosure described Flock reads or hits as retained for 30 days unless used in an investigation. That is stronger evidence than assuming a vendor-wide default, but it still does not substitute for Detroit’s current configured setting, current policy and executed agreement.

Flock announced a seven-day default and recommendation for new law-enforcement customers in August 2026 while saying existing customers would keep their current locally approved periods unless changed. Detroit residents should therefore not assume the new vendor announcement automatically changed Detroit’s existing setting.

Understand the difference between vendor defaults and local settings →

What the evidence does—and does not—show

Confirmed: Detroit has used Flock, Motorola and Genetec LPR systems; the Flock agreement is authorized through June 3, 2029; DPD’s April 2025 presentation documented a very large deployment.

Reported with a clear source: Independent records analysis found searches reaching out-of-state networks and described a 30-day Detroit retention practice.

Still unverified: the exact current live camera count; the current Motorola arrangement after June 30, 2026; current per-system retention settings; the complete current sharing-partner list; enabled advanced search features; and whether every policy statement matches configuration and practice.

Why the combined system matters

Each layer can have different ownership, access, retention and sharing rules. When several vendors and a real-time crime center are involved, the privacy question is not limited to what one roadside camera captures.

The larger question is what authorized users can search, connect, export and preserve across systems—and what can be enabled later through configuration, software or a contract amendment. A capability is not proof of present use. But current settings are not a permanent ceiling either, which is why public records, audit logs and governing-body oversight matter.

The next useful Detroit records

Ask for a focused, current set:

  1. the current LPR inventory by vendor and device type;
  2. the executed Flock agreement, order forms, amendments and current statement of work;
  3. records showing what happened to Motorola contract 6004555 after June 30, 2026;
  4. current retention settings for each LPR system and any evidence-preservation mode;
  5. current sharing partners and settings, including nationwide-search permissions;
  6. the current LPR policy and the most recent supervisory audit summaries;
  7. enabled search, alert, vehicle-description and free-text capabilities;
  8. the complete Selex ES bid response, attachments, demonstrations, evaluations and communications, including any reference to ELSAG, EOC Plus, SignalTrace or electronic-signature detection; and
  9. the next amendment, budget decision, renewal or nonrenewal notice deadline.

Request existing records, use a reasonable fee stop point, and avoid duplicating a request that another resident is already pursuing.

Use the Michigan public-records guide →

The campaign implication

Detroit’s Flock term creates a known organizing horizon in 2029, but residents do not need to wait until the final weeks of the contract. The work now is to establish the current system accurately, obtain the controlling terms, monitor amendments and spending, and build a public record before the next decision becomes urgent.

The requested end state is complete removal or nonrenewal of covered mass vehicle-tracking systems—not a quiet swap to an equivalent vendor.