Overview
- At a Public Safety Committee meeting on Aug. 25, Grand Rapids police and a Flock representative told residents they do not directly share Flock data with ICE or DHS and sought to address community concerns about immigration uses.
- Flock’s external affairs representative said the company has no contracts with ICE or DHS and that its platform does not allow direct sharing with those agencies.
- Grand Rapids police stated officers cannot run searches filtered specifically for immigration enforcement or to identify people seeking reproductive health care and said the department has received no misuse complaints in the past two years.
- The city has not published which outside agencies can access its Flock account, and local records showing an early-2025 search logged as “deportation warrant” that reporting later tied to an ATF query have reinforced public distrust.
- National audits and reporting this summer documented officer misuse, camera errors, and more than 50 local pauses or contract changes, and while Flock has shortened default data retention and added audit tools critics say stronger transparency, warrants and enforceable limits are still needed.