The drone contract with Flock Group Inc. will begin with a nine-month pilot program at no cost, but could be extended to a three-year contract for $2.5 million.
The commissioners voted 13-4 to approve the contract with Charles Cavell, Ann Erickson Gault, Kristen Nelson and Yolanda Smith Charles, all Democrats, voting against the proposal.
Michael Gingell, Marcia Gershenson, Bob Hoffman, Karen Joliat, Penny Luebs, Gwen Markham, Warren Miller, Angela Powell, Robert Smiley, Micheal Spisz, Linnie Taylor, Philip Weipert and Chairman Dave Woodward voted to approve.
Commissioner Christine Long was absent.
Residents who wanted to voice their opposition to the proposal were not allowed to address the board until after the vote was taken following a motion by Commissioner Angela Powell to move public comments to the end of the meeting was approved by a voice vote and accepted by Chairman Woodward.
Residents spoke out on a number of issues regarding the drone program including who keeps the data, how the drones will be used, how data can be accessed, the cost of the contract and the perception that drones will be used for surveillance rather than police use.
“I have been promised by more than one commissioner that this is not for surveillance,” said county resident Simon Coen. “This is a flying camera. I’m not sure how anyone would explain how that is not a surveillance program.”
Commissioner Bob Hoffman added three amendments to the motion that was approved:
The contract must be brought back for a full board vote after the nine-month pilot period.
All data accumulated would be the property of the sheriff’s department.
Drones would be for calls for service, officer generated usage or search and rescue.
The county board of commissioners received over three hours of feedback on the drone program during Wednesday night’s meeting and no one who spoke was in favor of it.
“With this vote we invite the infrastructure of mass surveillance,” said Ferndale resident Jonathon Ross. “The very idea is an appalling invasion of our privacy and our civil liberties and it is the exact opposite of public safety.”
The use of data and information collected by the Flock Group is spelled out in the approved contract.
“Flock shall own all rights to any data input into the Flock Services, Flock Hardware by or on behalf of Flock (not including any customer data),” the contract states. “Including all aggregated and anonymized usage data, statistical data, transactional data, metadata, market data and other aggregated and anonymized data collected from user data and files.”
But the Flock Group said in a statement on Thursday that “all video and flight data are encrypted in transit and at rest. Access is limited to authorized personnel at the sheriff’s office, and all access is logged and auditable. Flock customers own all the data collected through the DFR (drone as first responder) system, including images, video, and metadata.”
The sheriff’s office addressed the surveillance issue in a statement.
“The concerns that were raised last night have already been very specifically addressed in our policy and in our transparency. People can view the flight path as well as the call that they were deployed on,” they said. “These are not military drones and fly at very low altitudes for a short duration thus making them unsuited for surveillance. But, even if they were suited for that application which they are not, it is not allowed in our policy.”
Flock offers a variety of services for law enforcement, neighborhood and business safety and has drones, license plate readers, video cameras and audio detection technology available.
Flock cameras are currently being used in Hazel Park, Troy, Birmingham and Waterford among others.
According to Augustin Campuzano, a Flock account executive working with the Rochester Police Department, over 130 law enforcement agencies in Michigan use Flock services.
Campuzano spoke to the Rochester City Council on March 23 to give an overview of what their services entail and addressed privacy issues involved with camera usage.
“Our cameras do not capture any facial recognition or people,” he said. “There is only a 30-day retention. Data is permanently deleted after those 30 days. If anyone else wants to access the data the (Rochester Police) Chief (George Rouhib) has to approve it to be able to access that data.”
The council later considered a proposed two-year contract for three video cameras and four license plate readers at a cost of $41,100. The motion for approval failed after a 3-3 tied vote.
In November 2025 the Ferndale Police Department ended their two-year pilot program with Flock after one year. In 2024, 16 automatic license plate reader (ASLR) cameras were installed under the $47,800 contract.
“This decision reflects the feedback and concerns of the Ferndale community,” the department said in a statement.
No timeline was announced on when the drones would be put into service.
©2026 The Oakland Press, Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
