Oakland County OKs Flock Drones Despite Privacy Revolt

Oakland County’s Board of Commissioners voted 13-4 on April 8 to approve a nine-month pilot program that puts Flock Safety drones in the hands of the county Sheriff’s Office, as M Live reports.

The decision came over loud protests from residents who packed the meeting in Pontiac and warned of mass surveillance. Seven Flock drones will deploy on 911 calls starting this month at no cost to the county during the trial period.

What the Deal Includes

The program, called “Project Prove It,” gives the Sheriff’s Office seven Flock drones and supporting equipment. Under the original contract language, a two-year $2.5 million deal would automatically kick in unless the county opted out.

Republican Commissioner Bob Hoffman of Highland changed that. His amendment, which passed 16-1, requires the full commission to approve any post-pilot contract. It also mandates that all data collected by Flock belongs to the county and restricts drone use to calls for service, deputy requests, or search-and-rescue missions. Only Commissioner Ann Erickson Gault of Troy voted against the amendment.

Four commissioners voted against the overall resolution. All were Democrats: Charlie Cavell of Ferndale, Erickson Gault, Yolanda Smith Charles of Southfield, and Kristen Nelson of Waterford Township.

The Sheriff’s Office has operated its own drones for more than four years. Commission Chairman Dave Woodward called that an extremely successful program. He said Flock drone flights will be documented from the initial 911 call through deployment, flight time, and flight pattern. That data feeds a public-facing dashboard, and all video gets destroyed after a set period unless needed for investigation or prosecution.

The Flock Alpha Drone

Flock Safety already operates a network of Automatic License Plate Reader cameras across metro Detroit. Its drone program runs on the Flock Alpha, an American-made, NDAA-compliant quadcopter the company unveiled in October 2025 and designed at its Atlanta, Georgia facility.

The Alpha was built specifically for Drone as First Responder operations. It tops out at 60 mph, which Flock says makes it the fastest DFR quadcopter on the market. Flight time reaches up to 45 minutes.

Its camera can read a license plate from 2,000 feet away and includes HD thermal imaging with low-light capability. Four cellular modems and 15 antennas handle connectivity across an agency’s jurisdiction. A dual battery-swapping dock gets the drone airborne again in under 90 seconds.

Privacy Fears and the Data Question

The meeting ran late into the night and got heated. Commissioners voted on the resolution before opening public comment, a move that drew boos and angry shouting directed at Woodward.

Residents raised concerns about privacy, mass surveillance, and the possibility that Flock technology could be used for federal immigration enforcement. Flock has repeatedly said it holds no contracts with the Department of Homeland Security or Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

But investigations by Ars Technica and 404 Media tell a more complicated story. Ars Technica reported in October 2025 that Flock’s partnership with Amazon’s Ring cameras expanded its capacity to track people, particularly when combined with data purchased from brokers.

404 Media found that local and state police ran more than 4,000 Flock searches between February and May 2025 on behalf of federal authorities, some with a potential immigration focus.

An online petition opposing the drones had collected 3,973 signatures by April 13 in a county of nearly 1.3 million residents.

Flock’s Track Record in Metro Detroit

Oakland County isn’t operating in a vacuum here. Flock technology has gotten mixed reviews across the region.

Waterford Township approved a three-year, $60,000 Flock contract in December that expanded its license plate reader network to 16 units and added three drones. Ferndale went the other direction, ending its Flock partnership in November after community pushback.

Ferndale Councilwoman Laura Mikulski studied her city’s Flock data and found something striking. Ferndale accounted for less than 1% of total queries into its own license plate reader system. Now here comes a funny part: agencies as far away as Texas accessed the shared database far more frequently, with search entries she described as often vague, inconsistent, or bizarre, including entries logged as “thirsty” and “hamburger.”

Mikulski said the data made the system look less like a local public safety tool and more like her city was subsidizing access for outside agencies. She urged Oakland County commissioners to seek clear answers on data control, access limits, and policy enforcement before moving forward.

Hazel Park Councilman Luke Londo said his constituents will be unhappy with the county’s decision. His city’s police department owns its three drones outright rather than contracting through Flock, and they’re primarily being trained as a fire department tool for thermal imaging and hot-spot detection.

The ACLU of Michigan also weighed in before the vote. Policy strategist Gabrielle Dresner sent commissioners a letter urging them to decline the contract, arguing that government surveillance creates a chilling effect on communities. She cited research showing surveillance discourages people in minority groups from exercising their right to free speech.

DroneXL’s Take

Here’s what nobody is saying out loud: this vote wasn’t really about whether drones can help the Sheriff’s Office respond to emergencies. They can. Oakland County’s own four-year drone program already proved that.

This vote was about whether Flock Safety, a private surveillance company with an expanding data footprint, should become embedded in a county’s emergency infrastructure.

Commissioner Hoffman’s amendment salvaged the worst parts of the original deal. Requiring a full commission vote for the post-pilot contract removes the auto-renewal trap. Mandating county data ownership addresses the contract language that originally gave Flock rights to analytics derived from that data. Those are real structural improvements, and Hoffman deserves credit for them.

But Mikulski’s findings from Ferndale should be required reading for every commissioner. Less than 1% of queries in Ferndale’s own system came from Ferndale. Agencies in other states accessed the database using search terms that barely qualify as law enforcement justifications. That’s not a privacy theory. That’s documented behavior from the same company now getting seven drones over Oakland County.

The Alpha itself is a solid DFR platform. The 60 mph speed, 45-minute endurance, and 90-second turnaround put it in the top tier of American-made options. For departments navigating the NDAA compliance landscape, it checks every box. The hardware isn’t the problem.

The problem is process and trust. Voting before public comment, regardless of procedural justification, tells residents their input was a formality. DFR programs succeed when communities feel ownership over them. Oakland County’s commissioners got the technology question right. They got the transparency question wrong.

Photo credit: Flock, Oakland County.