Kalamazoo County Sheriff Richard Fuller presented to the Oshtemo Township Board on how the county’s automatic license plate reader program works.
The Sheriff’s Office maintains 24 automatic license plate reader (ALPR) cameras, provided through a contract with the company Flock, placed at major intersections and roadways throughout the county. Fuller said the cameras are fixed devices with no pan, tilt, or zoom capability and they capture a single image at a specific location and moment, rather than tracking a vehicle continuously.
Access to the system requires a deputy to enter a case number and a stated reason before searching, and the Sheriff’s Office audits those searches regularly. Other agencies, including Michigan State Police and local police departments, can view the county’s data, but only under the same case-number-and-reason requirement. Fuller said there have been no known cases of a false arrest tied to ALPR data in the county’s roughly two years using the system, and that the department is not part of any nationwide search network; data is shared with federal authorities only when specifically requested for a stated reason.
Beyond the 24 county-owned cameras, deputies can also access footage from participating private businesses through agreements that let the Sheriff’s Office view what those private cameras collect, without a warrant.
On data retention, Fuller said the department keeps a rolling seven-day window of ALPR data internally, but that Flock maintains a separate copy beyond that window so the department can audit specific incidents later. He acknowledged he doesn’t have full visibility into exactly how or where that additional copy is stored, or whether it could be shared or sold to others, and said those are among the questions he continues to raise with the company.
The county’s current contract with Flock expires in February 2027. The Sheriff’s Office is reviewing whether to extend it for one more year or pause the program, and Fuller said that decision hasn’t been made.
Public comment on the topic was divided. One resident argued that license plates carry no expectation of privacy in public and that existing safeguards, including audit requirements, are sufficient. Another resident argued that the cameras amount to government overreach regardless of the safeguards in place, and that residents don’t want to be surveilled.
