FLINT, Mich. (Michigan News Source) – The city of Flint is looking to expand a five-year $1.18 million deal with a company to provide its police department 31 additional surveillance cameras that are a subject to a privacy lawsuit in another state.

Flint has used the cameras manufactured by Flock Group, Inc., since 2023. That technology which captures images of vehicles and tracks them is the subject of a lawsuit in Virginia. The company says its technology allows cameras to alert the police “the moment a suspect car passes by, even without a plate.” The deal was reviewed by the city’s finance committee at its Oct. 22 meeting.

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The Institute for Justice filed a lawsuit against the city of Norfolk in Virginia for implementing 172 automatic license plate reader cameras throughout the city in 2023. The term “license plate reader” is used to describe these cameras, but the technology has evolved beyond that.

“Unlike red light or speed cameras, which are triggered by specific violations, Flock cameras record every vehicle that drives by,” the Institute for Justice stated in a press release. “The cameras then upload the data to a server and create a ‘vehicle fingerprint,’ which allows anyone with access to the Flock database to track everywhere that vehicle goes, all without a warrant. Flock claims its cameras are in more than 5,000 communities throughout the country.”

In February, Judge Mark Davis of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia rejected the city of Norfolk’s request to dismiss the lawsuit.