Big Brother turns its eye towards Leelanau

Editor’s Note: a lot of folks choose to live in Leelanau because your every move isn’t monitored. I was happy to see that the County Board agrees (for now at least), and I thought Board Vice Chair Ty Wessel put it very well:

“This is really scary to me.” [Flock] is a private firm. The data they collect in Leelanau County can be sold, can be distributed, can be used for whatever purpose anybody else using Flock cameras wants it for…I don’t want to support something that’s going to be misused – not by us, but by who knows who. And I think we’ve got to be really careful. Yeah, we want to catch stolen cars, but we do not want to frighten our residents.”

The Leelanau Ticker reports that the question of traffic cameras came before the Leelanau County Board of Commissioners yesterday:

That question was a major topic of discussion at Tuesday’s executive board meeting, where the Board of Commissioners talked through a proposal from the Leelanau County Sheriff’s Office to pursue a 60-day trial period for license plate-reading cameras on county roads. Those cameras, which are currently in place throughout several nearby counties, can trigger real-time alerts when vehicles of interest – such as cars reported stolen, linked to criminal activity, or flagged by AMBER alerts – pass through key intersections. With multiple commissioners expressing misgivings about the technology, the board decided to table the matter pending further research and consideration.

The sheriff’s office had sought board approval for “a trial period with Flock Safety for a 60-day traffic study that would include the installation of 12 traffic-related cameras in various locations throughout the county.” The trial, which would take place “late spring to early summer of 2026,” would be free of charge, with Flock Safety “absorbing the costs of all initial installation, permitting, and utilities.” Commissioners could then decide based on trial results if an ongoing partnership with Flock is in the county’s best interests.

…According to Flock, these types of traffic cameras are not used to issue speeding tickets or to spot other traffic violations. They are intended to create a “vehicle fingerprint” of cars traveling local roads, cataloging information including license plate number, make, model, color, and after-market features. Flock claims the collection of this information has “proven to increase case clearance and solve more crime” in the 4,000-plus communities where its cameras are now in place.