System status: Confirmed Flock purchase and deployment
Campaign status: Flock issue remains in Public Safety committee; follow-up meeting not yet posted
October meetings ended without a continuation decision.
The Public Safety, Health & Environment Committee met on October 1 with Flock cameras as its only listed agenda item. A meeting account based on the official packet and video says the session ran from 7:00 to 9:17 PM, 39 people signed in, police and union representatives attended, and Flock sent a representative.
Police described investigative uses and said Livonia had reduced routine retention from 30 days to 14 days. Shorter retention reduces the amount immediately available, but it does not end routine collection, outside access or preservation of selected records.
Official October 1 city calendar entry ↗
At the October 12 regular meeting, no final action was taken on the cameras. A motion to move CR 284-26 to the Committee of the Whole failed 1-5, leaving the issue with the Public Safety committee. The committee chair said more than a dozen questions were still awaiting answers.
Seventeen people spoke about Flock during closing public comment, and the meeting account reports that all opposed the system. Councilmember Brandon McCullough said he would seek another committee meeting quickly. As of this review, that follow-up date has not been posted.
Livonia Thrive account based on the October 12 packet and meeting video ↗
Archived official October 12 agenda record ↗
FOIA-derived search totals were presented publicly—but the raw logs still need publication.
Residents told council that July and August network-audit records showed more than one million outside-agency searches of Livonia-origin data. One speaker said search reasons included “immigration” 218 times in July and 181 times in August, along with references to the U.S. Marshals Service, DEA, ICE and 287(g). McCullough separately cited 15,374 searches attributed to the Texas Department of Public Safety.
Those figures were presented at a recorded public meeting and reported from records residents said they obtained through FOIA. We have not independently reviewed the underlying exports, and a network-audit “search” may not mean a unique person, plate or successful match. The responsible next step is to publish the privacy-minimized raw logs, field definitions, time range and sharing configuration so residents and officials can reproduce the totals.
The records, if confirmed as described, would show why local ownership does not equal local reach. They would not by themselves prove that every search was unlawful or that Livonia officers initiated the outside searches.
What residents should ask for next
- Schedule the follow-up meeting before any renewal, expansion or deadline can pass quietly.
- Publish the controlling contract with the term, price, products, renewal clause and exit rights.
- Publish the July-August audit exports and definitions with plate numbers and personal identifiers redacted.
- Identify outside access by agency, search type, stated reason, date and review result.
- Explain the 14-day setting and every way a record can be preserved, exported or retained elsewhere.
- Place termination or nonrenewal before the full council as a separately identified public decision.
Keep claims precise. The public-meeting record establishes serious questions and very large reported search totals; the underlying data should now be made inspectable.
Livonia approved Flock cameras and software in October 2025.
At its September 22, 2025 study meeting, Livonia City Council considered a police request to waive formal bidding and authorize the purchase of Flock Safety cameras and software products.
The city said the purchase would use budgeted and grant funds and was intended to support crime prevention and investigations.
Official September 22, 2025 Livonia study-meeting notice
The item returned on the October 6 regular-meeting consent agenda marked “Approving.” In a June 2026 council meeting, the council president publicly stated that the measure had been approved 6–0 on October 6 and offered to email the contract to residents.
Official October 6, 2025 Livonia agenda
June 2026 meeting account documenting the council president’s statement
That establishes a city-approved Flock purchase. It does not answer every question the public needs answered.
Why the consent-agenda detail matters
A consent agenda is a normal way to approve multiple items in one vote. It is usually designed for matters officials consider routine or already reviewed. But a surveillance purchase can receive little or no separate discussion at the final voting meeting when it is placed in that block.
That is what makes the earlier paper trail important. In Livonia, the public clue appeared in the September study-meeting material before the approving item returned on the October consent agenda.
This does not prove officials intended to conceal the purchase. It does show why residents cannot rely on hearing the words “Flock” or “license-plate reader” during the final meeting itself.
When a surveillance item appears:
- read study-session and committee agendas as well as regular-meeting agendas;
- open the full packet and every attachment, not only the short agenda title;
- check the consent section, bid waivers, grant acceptances, budget amendments and purchasing items;
- ask the clerk what the local procedure is for requesting separate discussion;
- ask an elected member to pull the item from consent if residents need answers;
- request postponement when the order form, privacy terms or long-term cost are missing;
- and record the motion and roll-call vote even if discussion lasts only seconds.
Jake the Lawyer illustrates this problem with a Texas consent-agenda vote beginning around 12:29 in We Got Rid of Mass Surveillance (and You Can Too). The video is commentary; Livonia’s official agendas are the evidence for what happened here.
Watch the consent-agenda segment →
Use our public-meeting guide →
What products were publicly described?
A searchable meeting-summary account of the September presentation described an initial deployment of approximately 35 LPR units, including:
- 21 standard Flock plate-reader cameras;
- approximately 10 long-range plate readers;
- two dual-solar LPR bundles;
- and an enhanced LPR software upgrade intended to share alerts with regional law-enforcement partners.
The account also says the purchase was supported by a Michigan Automobile Theft Prevention Authority grant and forfeiture funds.
Meeting summary: Livonia Flock presentation
This is useful detail, but it is an automated summary of the public meeting—not the executed order form. Quantities, product names, pricing and included software should be checked against the signed contract before being treated as final.
What is confirmed—and what is not?
Confirmed
- Council publicly considered and approved a Flock camera/software purchase in fall 2025.
- The official agenda identifies both budgeted and grant funding.
- Public mapping contains numerous camera leads attributed to Livonia Police, Flock and other operators or vendors.
- Flock hosts a Livonia Police transparency portal, although a vendor-hosted portal is not a substitute for the contract, audit logs or city policy.
Reported but awaiting the controlling order
- the approximately 35-device configuration;
- the division between standard, long-range and dual-solar LPR equipment;
- the enhanced regional-alert or network-search software;
- total first-year and recurring cost;
- contract length, renewal mechanics and nonrenewal deadline;
- retention settings and every agency-sharing relationship.
Not located in the reviewed Livonia records
We did not locate a reliable public Livonia record establishing that the city purchased Flock Condor video cameras, Raven acoustic detection, Nova data fusion, a Flock drone program, Wing camera integration or a community-camera registry.
That is not proof of absence. “Cameras and software products” is broad language. The executed order form, invoices and administrator settings are needed to identify every enabled product.
Learn what Condor and Raven do and why connected products matter →
Camera maps are leads, not the city inventory.
Volunteer datasets show a substantial and changing collection of ALPRs inside Livonia, including devices attributed to Livonia Police, Schoolcraft College Police, businesses and other operators. Different public map sites currently produce different totals because they use different boundaries, refresh schedules and attribution rules.
That means a mapped point can help locate equipment, but the total cannot be presented as the official Livonia Police inventory.
The right official record is a current asset or device export listing product, camera ID, status, owner/operator, location and funding source.
Why the long-range and regional-network details matter
Long-range LPR products are designed for faster or more complex roadways. Regional alert and search features can also expand the practical reach of a Livonia search beyond cameras physically located in the city.
The public therefore needs to know:
- which searches stay inside Livonia and which query outside networks;
- which outside agencies can search Livonia-origin data;
- whether private or campus cameras are available in the same platform;
- what offense threshold and case number are required;
- how unusual searches are flagged and independently reviewed;
- and whether immigration, protest, traffic-enforcement or other sensitive uses are technically blocked or merely discouraged by policy.
These are capability questions, not allegations that Livonia has used the system for an improper purpose.
Highest-value Livonia records
Ask for:
- the complete executed 2025 Flock agreement, order form, master services agreement and implementation plan;
- the council resolution number and final approved amount;
- every invoice, purchase order, grant award and forfeiture-fund record;
- a current inventory of all Flock, Genetec, Motorola/Vigilant, Axon or other ALPR products operated by or searchable by Livonia Police;
- every Flock module, add-on, trial and software entitlement;
- current retention, hot-list, alert, search, sharing and audit settings;
- every inbound and outbound sharing partner;
- de-identified search and alert statistics plus audit findings;
- the current expiration date, auto-renewal clause, nonrenewal-notice deadline and termination cost;
- and every planned expansion, relocation or replacement.
If someone already has these records, send them rather than filing a duplicate request.
Send a Livonia record or correction →
Our current Livonia ask
Publish the full contract, inventory, product list, sharing relationships and audit results before any expansion or renewal.
Then give residents a real public decision on the next term:
Do not expand the system. Decline renewal and remove the network.