Flock Safety, at Grand Rapids city meeting, says it does not have contracts with ICE, DHS
The short version: Flock Safety told Grand Rapids officials it has no direct contracts with ICE or DHS, but that claim dodges the real question of how federal agents actually get plate data.
Our Take
Flock Safety's pitch to Grand Rapids city leaders was carefully worded: no contracts with ICE, no contracts with DHS. As reported by FOX 17 WXMI, that statement is technically narrow and practically meaningless. Flock doesn't need a federal contract to funnel data to federal agencies — it just needs local police departments willing to share network access, and its national lookup system makes that trivially easy across jurisdiction lines.
This is the same dodge we've heard in city council chambers across the country. A company can honestly say it has no direct deal with ICE while its technology still lets a sheriff in one state run a search that surfaces a driver's movements logged by cameras in a dozen other counties, no warrant required. The contract question is a distraction from the real issue: once plate data exists in a searchable network, control over who ultimately sees it is mostly a matter of policy promises, not technical limits.
Grand Rapids residents deserve a real accounting of every agency that can query their local cameras, not a press-release denial. Check our map to see what's already watching your streets, and visit take action to push your council for real answers before the next contract renewal.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of FOX 17 WXMI, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.