Last night the Oakland County Board of Commissioners in Michigan approved a contract with Flock Safety for drones to patrol the streets.
There was immense public backlash over this decision, but before the board could hear the public’s grievances, they removed the first public comment period. This only left one public comment at the end AFTER votes had taken place.
Commissioner Powell made the motion to remove the public comment and Chair Woodward refused to do a roll call vote to confirm there was a sufficient number of votes for this change.
Originally the Flock contract was for a free trial period until December and the county would be charged 2.5 million for two years if they did not opt out. This item received less than three minutes of consideration in committee and the sheriff’s office assured commissioners that the public’s data would be protected. However, that was no where in Flock’s contract.
Commissioner Bob Hoffman offered an amendment to the item to only allow for the trial period without an automatic renewal, ensuring the data is owned by Oakland County Sheriff and not Flock, and the drones can only be used for calls for service or officer generated.
The amendment was approved and the pilot contract was approved.
This resulted in outbursts throughout the meeting and eventually a 3.5 hour public comment period at the end. Residents often spoke of the invasion of privacy, concerns about hacking the Flock system, connections with big tech owner Peter Thiel, and fear of constant surveillance.
The meeting started 45 minutes late and lasted to almost midnight.
