Oakland County Sheriff's Office ends Flock Safety drone contract; Parks drop license plate readers

After months of debate over Flock Safety technology in Oakland County, two county agencies are now pulling back from parts of the companys technology.

7 Investigator Heather Catallo was the first to report that Flock Safety paid for a trip for County Commission Chair Dave Woodward and sheriffs officials to visit the companys Atlanta headquarters.

Now shes learned both the Sheriffs Office and Parks Department are ending some of those county agreements with Flock.

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Oakland County residents have been fighting Flock for months at county commission meetings, and local city council meetings.

The 7 Investigators were the first to reveal that Flock Safety paid for Oakland County Board of Commissioners Chair Dave Woodward (D-Royal Oak) and some sheriffs officials to visit Flock headquarters in Atlanta. Several of Woodwards fellow county commissioners say he did not disclose his Flock-paid trip prior to their vote approving a 911 drone trial project in April.

It raised a lot of questions in regard to why hide it, said Oakland County Commissioner Kristen Nelson (D-Waterford).

This fall, as privacy concerns grew with the public, several local communities have been canceling their Flock Safety contracts. Instead of backing away, in September Woodward and 11 other commissioners voted to approve an auto-theft grant that would fund Flock license plate readers and quick deploy cameras for the county.

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But now the 7 Investigators have learned the Oakland County Sheriff is not moving forward with the Flock Safety drone as first responder contract. The agreement known as Project Prove It allowed the sheriffs office to have a free trial of Flocks 911 response drones until December. After that the deal would have cost up to $2.5 million. Records show in early August, the Sheriffs office sent the required notice that they would be terminating their Flock drone agreement on December 1, 2026.

In a statement, the Sheriffs Public Information Officer Tyler Sweers told the 7 Investigators: The Oakland County Sheriffs Office is nearing the end of Project Prove It, a pilot with Flock Safety that allowed us to evaluate its drone technology in real public safety operations. The purpose of these evaluation trials was driven by the fact that our current platform is aging, and we can no longer acquire them. We appreciate the opportunity to test the technology and after completing our evaluation, have decided not to pursue a contract with Flock Safety for our Drone as First Responder program. As we work to replace our aging drone fleet, we will continue evaluating other platforms.

We appreciate the opportunity to work with the Oakland County Sheriffs Office on a pilot program for our Drone as First Responder technology. We remain committed to supporting Oakland County and our law enforcement partners, said Flock Safety Public Relations Manager Paris Lewbel.

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It's extremely good news that the Oakland County Sheriff had the presence of mind to cancel something that I think scared a lot of people with their rights of privacy, said Oakland County Commissioner Charlie Cavell (D-Ferndale).

Cavell says he supports the decision, especially after the sheriffs office announced it was investigating a former deputy who sources say is accused of accessing the Flock database after he left his county job to work for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

I want this to be the beginning of hopefully a productive conversation with county commissioners who set policies for the county and also the sheriff, to then make sure that Oakland County residents know who is watching us, who has access to the information that is being collected while drones are watching us, said Cavell. What trustworthy methods do we have in place to make sure that we are safe from an invasion of privacy? Because to date, we don't have that. To date, what we have is public outrage at Oakland County commissioners not listening to their people and voting for surveillance drones to fly over them at times and places that they don't know So, we have zero trust in this technology, zero trust and surveillance drones, and that needs to change.

The Sheriff is not the only one making changes.

Our parks are extraordinarily safe, said Oakland County Parks Director Chris Ward.

Ward says Oakland County Parks will not be renewing their Flock Safety license plate reader contracts.

Whether you place one at a park is a totally separate issue from whether you're utilizing it for a law enforcement purpose. In this case, we just made the determination it wasn't appropriate to our funding for this purpose, said Ward. Over time as the subscriptions were coming up for renewal, we took a closer look at what the benefits were, some of the detractions, and decided not to renew.

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Ward says the Flock cameras were initially installed in 2023 after incidents at some of their dog parks, and they helped track visitor counts. But Ward says ultimately, the Flock cameras did not prevent crime.

It's really when you look at park safety, you're really wanting a deterrent preventative measure. And what the cameras are particularly good at is investigative efforts after a crime has occurred and been reported. We looked at the incident reports for the period during which we had these cameras. And while there were some connections to follow up in apprehension of potential criminals, almost all those incidents had nothing to do with anything that happened within our parks, said Ward.

Ward says Oakland County Parks will still continue to have security cameras and car counting technology, but it wont be with Flock Safety.

The Oakland County Sheriffs Office is still pursuing drone technology with other companies. On Thursday, detectives sent their investigation into the former deputy whos accused of accessing the Flock database to the Oakland County Prosecutor for review of possible charges.

The 7 Investigators have reached out to Chair Woodward regarding these two changes to Flocks agreements with the county. So far, he has not responded to our requests for response.

At the time of his Flock-paid trip Woodward send us this statement:

The job of an elected official is to make informed decisions in the best interest of my community, so I do my homework and I do my research. I was invited to attend a meeting with the leadership of Oakland County Sheriffs Office to learn more about the service.

 

It was an opportunity to better understand the technology and address my privacy concerns directly with the companys senior leadership.

 

We also visited a local police department thats currently using this tool and spoke with the police chief and his staff about its effectiveness in supporting public safety.

If you have a story for Heather Catallo, please email her at [email protected]