Kettering student sues Genesee County over Flock cameras

Our Take

Credit to FOX 2 Detroit for covering a fight that should be happening in every county with Flock cameras: a records request that hit a wall. Joshua Tewolde, a student at Kettering University, wanted basic transparency about how Genesee County uses its ALPR network. Instead of answers, he got a partial response and, according to his attorney Steve Delie of the Mackinac Center Legal Foundation, that's not good enough under Michigan's FOIA law.

This is the pattern we see over and over: agencies roll out blanket surveillance infrastructure first and treat public accountability as an afterthought, if they bother with it at all. When a college student has to lawyer up just to find out how a system scanning his neighbors' plates actually operates, that's a signal the oversight is broken, not the exception. Flock markets these cameras as a public-safety tool, but the public can't evaluate that claim without access to the data, the policies, and the usage logs that counties are supposed to turn over.

Lawsuits like this matter because they force a choice: either local governments open the books on how these networks are built and shared, or courts start making them. If you want to see whether Flock or similar ALPR cameras are already watching your own commute, check our camera map, and if you're ready to push back locally, our take-action page has steps for filing your own records requests and raising the issue at a city council meeting.