File your own request

The request we send, ready to adapt. Michigan FOIA requires your full name, a mailing address, and a phone number or email address.

Send it to the agency's FOIA coordinator. Every Michigan city, village, township and county must name one (MCL 15.236(1)), and a public body with a website must post there a written summary of how to submit requests (MCL 15.234(4)); many police departments have a separate address or portal from the city clerk. If your city is policed by the county sheriff, send Part A to the city and both parts to the sheriff.

This page describes the Act as we read it and is not legal advice.

Part A: documents

Send as one request, subject line "FOIA Request: Flock Safety / ALPR program records: documents". Replace [AGENCY] with the department and [PUBLIC BODY] with the city, township or county. The fee paragraph in each part says the findings will be published on a public website; rewrite that sentence to say what you will do with the records. The Act requires your full name, a mailing address, and an email or phone number (MCL 15.233(1)).

FOIA request under the Michigan Freedom of Information Act, MCL 15.231 et seq.
Flock Safety / automated license plate reader (ALPR) program records: documents.

I request copies of the following records of [PUBLIC BODY] concerning the [AGENCY]'s use of Flock Safety automated license plate reader technology. Please provide each record in the electronic format in which it is kept (PDF, XLSX, CSV, or similar) by email or through your records portal; for any record held only on paper, a scanned PDF is preferred. I stipulate electronic delivery of the records and of your response (MCL 15.234(1)(c); MCL 15.235(10)) and am not requesting paper copies or physical media. Where a record is already posted on your website, the specific webpage address is sufficient (MCL 15.234(5)). If an item is held by another department or office of [PUBLIC BODY] rather than the [AGENCY], please forward that portion to the office that holds it, or tell me which office does, rather than deny it on that ground; items 1 and 2 are likely held by the clerk, finance, or purchasing office as well as the [AGENCY].

Time frame: January 1, 2020 through the date this request is received. If [PUBLIC BODY]'s first Flock agreement is dated later than 2020, no search of earlier years is needed.

1. Contracts and pricing. Every agreement between [PUBLIC BODY] and Flock Group Inc. (Flock Safety) or a reseller: order forms, master terms, data-sharing memoranda of understanding, quotes, amendments, renewals, and all invoices, including any for cameras paid for by a department or fund of [PUBLIC BODY] other than the [AGENCY].

2. Procurement and approval. Purchase orders; any request for proposals, bid tabulation, or sole-source justification; the budget line item or account and any grant award, application, or grant report that funded the program; and the agenda item, staff memo, minutes, and recorded vote of any council, board, or commission action approving the initial purchase and each later expansion or renewal.

3. Policy. The ALPR or Flock policy, standard operating procedures, hot-list criteria, and audit policy in effect at any point in the time frame, including superseded versions; and any list of approved search reasons and any record showing whether a search reason is required.

4. Data sharing. Any agreement, memorandum of understanding, or written authorization under which another organization may access the [AGENCY]'s Flock data or the [AGENCY] may access another organization's Flock data (other agencies, the Flock statewide or nationwide network, the Michigan State Police, fusion centers, federal agencies, private entities), and any record of the [AGENCY]'s decision to join or leave the Flock statewide or nationwide sharing networks.

5. Camera inventory. The [AGENCY]'s camera inventory: the Flock device list export or any equivalent list the [AGENCY] keeps (location name, coordinates or street location, device type, install date), and any installation report, relocation record, or decommission record for a device added, moved, or removed since January 1, 2020. If location coordinates are withheld, please release the remaining fields.

6. Retention and transparency portal. The [AGENCY]'s Flock data-retention period as stated in any policy, contract or order form, settings record, or correspondence with Flock, and any correspondence with Flock, memo, or approval concerning setting or changing that period, including the [AGENCY]'s own request to Flock. If the [AGENCY] publishes a Flock transparency portal, please include its web address; for anything shown there, the address is sufficient.

7. Audits. Each internal audit memo or report of ALPR use prepared under the [AGENCY]'s ALPR policy, with any list or sample of the searches reviewed; any written finding that a user violated that policy, with its disposition (names may be redacted); any memo or report the [AGENCY] has prepared about searches of its cameras by other organizations; and any periodic usage or performance report Flock has sent to the [AGENCY] since January 1, 2024. Raw system exports are not requested under this item.

If no record exists for an item, please include in your written response the certificate required by MCL 15.235(5)(b) that the record does not exist under the name given here or by another name reasonably known to you.

Fees. I request a public-interest fee waiver or reduction under MCL 15.234(2): the records concern the operation and oversight of a public automated license plate reader program, and the findings will be published for the general public at no charge on a public website covering Michigan license plate reader programs, so furnishing them can be considered as primarily benefiting the general public. If you assess a fee, please send the estimate on your standard detailed-itemization form (MCL 15.234(4)), broken out by the numbered items above so that I can narrow the request, and, if the estimate exceeds $50, the deposit notice under MCL 15.234(8), within the response period of MCL 15.235(2). I understand that labor for search, examination, and redaction may be charged only where failure to charge would result in unreasonably high costs because of the nature of this particular request and the public body specifically identifies the nature of those costs (MCL 15.234(3)); that labor is capped at the hourly wage of the lowest-paid employee capable of the task, plus a fringe-benefit multiplier of at most 50 percent noted on the itemization (MCL 15.234(1)(a), (b), (e), (2)); and that records already available on your website are exempt from redaction charges (MCL 15.234(5)).

If any portion is exempt, please release the non-exempt portions (MCL 15.244(1)) and, for each withholding, state the basis and describe what was separated or deleted (MCL 15.235(5)(a), (c)). Thank you.

[Your full name]
[Street address, City, MI ZIP]
[Email] / [phone]

Part B: system exports

Send as a second request the same day, subject line "FOIA Request: Flock Safety / ALPR program records: system exports". The two are written to stand alone.

FOIA request under the Michigan Freedom of Information Act, MCL 15.231 et seq.
Flock Safety / automated license plate reader (ALPR) program records: system exports.

I request copies of the following records held in the [AGENCY]'s Flock Safety account. Each is data the system already stores; the Flock audit and reporting tools copy it to a CSV (or the format the system produces) with a standard export function, and that file is the copy I am requesting. For any item the system displays but does not export, a copy in whatever form the system provides is acceptable. Please provide each file by email or through your records portal, and your response by email (MCL 15.234(1)(c); MCL 15.235(10)). No paper copies or physical media are requested.

Time frame: items 1, 2 and 4, July 1, 2026 through the date the export is run; items 3, 5 and 6, as of the date the export is run. If the export tool limits each run to a fixed window (for example 30 days), please run consecutive exports so that the files together cover the period and send each file. It would help me to know the earliest date the tool will accept, so that I can request earlier periods separately.

1. Search audit (searches run by your users): all fields the export contains, including search ID, user, organization, total networks searched, time frame, license plate, reason, case number, filters, search time, and search type.

2. Network audit (searches of your cameras run by users of other organizations): all fields the export contains, including the searching organization, total networks searched, reason, search time, and search type.

3. Sharing configuration export as of the date the export is run, for each network the [AGENCY] operates: the organizations that share camera data with the [AGENCY] and the organizations the [AGENCY] shares its camera data with, together with the sharing-settings record showing whether statewide and nationwide sharing are enabled.

4. Change logs: the hot-list event log (creation, update, and deletion of hot lists and their entries, with user and date), and any event log or audit trail the system keeps of changes to users, sharing settings, or retention, if the system provides one.

5. The hot-list alert summary or alert export the system produces (alerts by hot list or topic and date), and any alert-disposition report the system produces. If individual alerts drawn from LEIN or NCIC lists are withheld, the summary the system produces is sufficient for those.

6. User list export (authorized users and roles) as of the date the export is run.

These exports are copies of existing public records. Each entry is a writing (MCL 15.232(l)) recorded in the [AGENCY]'s Flock account at the moment a search, alert, or change occurs; the [AGENCY] uses it in performing an official function, so it is a public record from the time it is created (MCL 15.232(i)) whether or not the [AGENCY] owns the server on which Flock stores it, and computer-stored data is not software (MCL 15.232(j)). I am not asking for a compilation, summary, or report (MCL 15.233(4)); furnishing a copy of an existing record is not creating a new one (MCL 15.233(1), (5)). If the [AGENCY] has already run any of these exports for its own audits under its ALPR policy, I request those existing files as well. If the [AGENCY]'s position is that any item is not its public record, or does not exist until an export is run, please state that position and its basis in the written notice required by MCL 15.235(5), with the certificate described in MCL 15.235(5)(b) where you rely on non-existence.

If you believe individual case numbers, license plates, text prompts, or user names are exempt, please redact those fields within the CSV (replace the value and keep the column) rather than converting the file, leave every other field intact, including search time, organization, search type, total networks searched, time frame, filters, and the reason field (with any name or case number inside it redacted), and state the exemption relied on for each redacted field (MCL 15.244(1); MCL 15.235(5)(a), (c)). A role or pseudonym in place of a user name is acceptable.

Fees. I request a public-interest fee waiver or reduction under MCL 15.234(2): the records concern the operation and oversight of a public automated license plate reader program, and the findings will be published for the general public at no charge on a public website covering Michigan license plate reader programs, so furnishing them can be considered as primarily benefiting the general public. Running an export is labor directly associated with making a digital copy (MCL 15.234(1)(e)); labor for search, examination, and redaction may be charged only where failure to charge would result in unreasonably high costs because of the nature of this particular request and the public body specifically identifies the nature of those costs (MCL 15.234(3)). If you assess a fee, please send the estimate on your standard detailed-itemization form (MCL 15.234(4)), broken out by the numbered items above, and, if it exceeds $50, the deposit notice under MCL 15.234(8), within the response period of MCL 15.235(2); I will narrow or confirm the request promptly. Thank you.

[Your full name]
[Street address, City, MI ZIP]
[Email] / [phone]

After you send it

The agency has 5 business days to respond and may extend that once, by notice, for up to 10 business days (MCL 15.235(2)). If it demands a fee you believe exceeds what the Act allows, and its procedures provide for fee appeals, you can appeal in writing to the head of the public body using the word "appeal" (MCL 15.240a); the head must answer within 10 business days and may take one extension of up to 10 more. If you would like your results added to this site, write to records@michiganplatereaders.org.