Michigan Democrats call on MDOT to revoke Flock camera contracts
The short version: Michigan Democratic lawmakers are pushing MDOT to cut ties with Flock Safety, a sign that ALPR backlash is reaching state-level infrastructure agencies, not just local police departments.
Our Take
CBS Detroit reports that a group of Michigan Democrats want the state's transportation department to walk away from its Flock Safety camera contracts entirely. That's a notable escalation — this isn't a city council debating a police department's gear, it's lawmakers targeting the agency that controls highway infrastructure, which is exactly where a dense, interconnected ALPR network does the most damage to anonymous movement across an entire state.
What makes MDOT's involvement worth watching is scale. State transportation agencies sit on corridors that funnel traffic from every direction, meaning cameras mounted there can capture far more trips than a scattered patchwork of local deployments. When lawmakers start asking "why does our DOT need this at all," it's a tacit admission that these systems have crept well past their original pitch of helping local police solve specific crimes, into something closer to a statewide tracking grid.
We'll be watching whether MDOT actually responds or just sits on the request, which is the usual playbook for these contracts. If you want to see how dense Flock's footprint already is in Michigan and elsewhere, check our camera map, and if you'd rather not wait on lawmakers to act, our take-action page has steps for pushing your own local officials. Credit to CBS Detroit for surfacing this fight.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of CBS Detroit, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.