Police License Plate Readers Spread Across Mich. While Lawmakers Seek to Create Guardrails

WATERFORD TOWNSHIP, MI—When Waterford Township Police Chief Scott Underwood asked the township's Board of Trustees earlier this year to approve technology that would improve his department's license plate reader capabilities, he was greeted by a host of residents voicing privacy concerns.

At the Jan. 26 meeting, Underwood asked for the township's approval to buy software that would integrate the department's license plate reader video with footage from cruiser dashcams, body cameras and the area's school district. He also asked to add more cameras in the Oakland County township.

License plate readers are publicly mounted cameras that capture images of the rear of vehicles and their license plates to assist police in solving crimes or locating missing people. They've become nearly ubiquitous across Metro Detroit in the last four years.

Statewide, more than 180 law enforcement agencies ― nearly a third of all agencies in Michigan ― now use Flock Safety technology, according to data compiled by the company. And Flock isn't the only LPR vendor available for police use.

“When I first started this work" in 2022, roughly 60 agencies used the technology, said Gabrielle Dresner, a policy strategist with the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan.

Flock spokesperson Paris Lewbel said his company has "become a game changer" for police throughout the country. Like Underwood, Lewbel attributed the technology to solving crimes such as burglaries, assaults and stolen vehicles, as well as finding missing people.

But critics still have privacy concerns, leading some state lawmakers to advocate for more regulations to better monitor or delete data after it's been scanned. Some residents said they're wary about being watched and worry about the fact that a private vendor supplies the cameras, along with the possibility of the data being used in federal enforcement.

"Surely a few traffic violations isn't worth innocent lives and chaos when we can hire more police and solve the problem instead of feeding corporate greed," said Waterford Township resident Hailey Smith.

In some communities, officials have raised concerns about police using LPRs for purposes beyond investigating crimes. Detroit City Councilwoman Gabriela Santiago-Romero contends the city's cameras are possibly being used to scan parked vehicles for civil infractions, but the Detroit Police Department denies that. They said cameras are only used to investigate crimes and for missing persons cases.

Underwood, Waterford's police chief, meanwhile, has disputed the claims that data collected by LPRs can be used for surveillance or federal enforcement, calling them "misinformation, inaccuracies and speculation." He argued that the images are stored temporarily and can be used only for vehicles and license plates.

“They are entitled to their opinion, however or for whatever reason they arrived at that opinion. However, this legislative body represents all 70,158 residents of Waterford Township, and the men and women of the Waterford Police Department as well," Underwood told the Board of Trustees.

After Underwood asserted the cameras' effectiveness and fielded numerous questions, the trustees unanimously approved the police chief's request.

What agencies use license plate readers?

Of the state's five largest cities — Detroit, Grand Rapids, Warren, Sterling Heights and Ann Arbor — only Ann Arbor doesn't use the license plate reader technology, although the University of Michigan does.

But Michigan doesn't have any laws regulating LPR data storage or the transparency of its use with the public. Republican state Rep. Doug Wozniak of Shelby Township has introduced a bipartisan bill that would require police agencies to publish their LPR logs and delete the cameras' data after a certain period of time.

The bill has a hearing scheduled this month, said state Rep. Jimmie Wilson, the co-author and a Ypsilanti Democrat.

Wozniak said it's important for police agencies to have access to LPRs, but he wants to increase the public's trust in the technology.

“When we look at whether the police departments, sheriff’s departments, are concerned about the bills, I would say, certainly they are. But we’re looking to solve any type of issue we’ve got and make it a bill that would work because of the guardrails that we put up from the privacy issue," Wozniak said.

More license plate reader cameras deployed in more places

Law enforcement agencies that use LPRs aren't just expanding throughout Michigan; they're also expanding within the communities that use them.

At the Jan. 26 meeting, Underwood said the Waterford Police Department expected to add four new LPRs to its network this year. The department currently has 12 cameras, according to its Flock transparency portal.

In Grand Rapids, Michigan's second-largest city, the department went from having no LPRs prior to 2024 to having 30 now.

Detroit has 566 license plate readers in place across the city, according to an April 2025 report to the Detroit Board of Police Commissioners. There are 328 at city intersections and 235 on freeways.

They may be used for "purposes such as crime analysis, to alert law enforcement about the location of a wanted vehicle, and to identify the movements of a vehicle connected to a criminal investigation," according to the report.

Ron Wiles, executive director of the Michigan Association of Chiefs of Police, calls license plate readers a "very helpful investigative tool."

"It’s not a surveillance tool. Its main purpose is not to monitor individuals," Wiles said.

Santiago-Romero, who has raised questions about how license plate readers are used in Detroit, said she would like to see them used "for things Detroiters are asking us to do." She suggested they could be used to ticket drivers who run red lights, which she said residents have asked the city to crack down on.

Flock's Lewbel claimed his vendor alone is now responsible for 10% of solved crimes nationwide, citing a study conducted by his company. Crimes solved by Flock cameras include the Feb. 26 arrest of Spencer Anderson, who "ironically" is accused of dismantling and smashing three of Waterford Township's LPRs, according to a news release by Underwood.

Do local police agencies give license plate reader data to ICE?

The prevalence of LPRs has also intersected with the national controversy about immigration enforcement. ACLU's Dresner said the local agencies' access to their LPR data can be a workaround for Immigration and Customs Enforcement or Customs and Border Patrol agents.

“They’ll say, ‘Hey, we’ve got this person who we think is under ICE’s purview’ or whatever, and then the officer will search for the license plate associated with that person for an immigration search," Dresner said.

ICE and Border Patrol agents have been under scrutiny for their aggressive enforcement tactics under the Trump administration, leading to the detention of tens of thousands of undocumented immigrants, many of whom have no criminal charges or convictions. In Michigan alone, roughly 4,600 people were held last year. Regionally, law enforcement agencies' policies on dealing with immigration authorities at traffic stops vary greatly.

The Warren Police Department did 28 "HSI" searches over a five-week period in the first half of 2025, according to data confirmed by The Detroit News through the police department. "HSI" typically refers to the Department of Homeland Security, ICE's and CBP's parent agency.

Police Lt. John Gajewski said the searches were by a department member serving on a federal task force and unrelated to immigration matters.

"All use of the system is restricted to legitimate law enforcement purposes," Gajewski wrote in an email statement to The Detroit News. "Searches and access are logged and auditable, and the technology is not used for generalized surveillance. Our policies are designed to ensure the technology is used responsibly."

Asked about the data being shared with immigration agencies, Flock's Lewbel pointed out that LPR uses are ultimately governed by state law and local agencies' policies. Michigan Association of Chiefs of Police's Wiles agreed.

“Those are individual agencies’ decisions," Wiles said.

Waterford Township's Underwood said his officers have an internal policy that governs when they can share LPR data, but said the policy is not available to the public. The News has submitted a Freedom of Information Act request for the policy.

Underwood did, however, point out that his officers are prohibited from using LPR data for immigration enforcement or traffic enforcement, as is stated in the "Flock transparency portal" on the department's website. Detroit police are also prohibited from using LPR data for immigration enforcement, Santiago-Romero said. The Detroit Police Department did not respond to a request for comment.

The issue of LPRs in immigration enforcement also arose during a City Council meeting in Pontiac, which is patrolled by the Oakland County Sheriff's Office. Asked by a council member if ICE has ever requested license plate reader data from the sheriff's office, Undersheriff Tim Willis said they "have not gotten any request, nor ... fulfilled any request to give that information to ICE, or any federal agency for that matter."

“If it’s an immigration status offense that involved a crime, i.e., the person had status issues but was a criminal, we would handle that locally. That wouldn’t be something we turn over to ICE anyway. We would handle the local crime here," Willis said.

Spokesperson Steve Huber said the sheriff's office owns five LPRs managed by its auto theft unit throughout the county. Beyond that, the deputies use information from cameras owned by communities throughout Oakland County, Huber said.

Rules for police needed to tame 'Wild West' situation, advocates say

Wozniak's bill aims to put regulations on license plate readers, but the details aren't finalized.

House Bill 5493 would require LPR data to disappear after 14 days unless it's used in a criminal investigation. It would also require law enforcement agencies to publish quarterly reports that include the number of plates scanned, why the plates were scanned and the number of times the data was shared with external agencies.

It's paired with House Bill 5492, which would also enforce the 14-day timeframe.

Wozniak and Wilson, the lead sponsors of the two bills, said the legislation resulted from hearing repeated privacy concerns about the license plate readers from Michiganians.

"Folks are saying, ‘We understand law enforcement needs this as a tool, but at some point, the data shouldn’t just be sitting somewhere,'" Wilson said.

While Flock's Lewbel and Wiles have asserted that the agencies using Flock LPRs own the data, Dresner argued this could change at any point because Flock is a private company.

“Currently, it’s a bit of the Wild West since we don’t have these regulations. So I think that these bills are really critical to making sure that license plate readers are able to be preserved for those legitimate law enforcement purposes while protecting people’s privacies," said Dresner, who worked with Wilson and Wozniak on the legislation.

Police agencies express concerns about proposed rules

The police chiefs association's Wiles expressed concern about the quarterly reporting requirement because of the workload he said it would place on law enforcement agencies. The proposed rule might be cumbersome for smaller agencies that might not have the staff to efficiently produce such a report, he said.

He also disagreed with the 14-day retention period. He said anything below a 30-day period "would severely limit the effectiveness of the tool."

“Criminal investigations, you know, they don’t operate on a fixed two-week timeline," Wiles said. "Crimes are often reported days or weeks after they occur, and suspects are often identified after witness interviews, forensic analysis or investigative reviews."

Wilson acknowledged that 30 days was a compromise threshold he arrived at after speaking with members of law enforcement. Wozniak said he and Wilson are going to amend the legislation for a 30-day retention period to see if they can get the bill out of the House Judiciary Committee.

“It seems that we can work with law enforcement and satisfy the general public at about 30 days," Wozniak said.

Staff Writer Ben Warren contributed to this story.

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