surveillance_spending

A DISCOVERY INDEX of surveillance and police-technology dollar figures found in local government meeting records across 130+ named vendors — NOT a table of confirmed spending, and NOT safe to SUM. An audit on 2026-07-29 found aggregate views were adding amounts that must not be added: the same procurement recurs at committee, council, approval, amendment and renewal stages; "not to exceed" figures are authorization ceilings, not payments. Use the canned query "the CONSERVATIVE total" for any number you intend to publish, and "data-quality report" to see what is flagged. Columns added for this: `amount_type` (stated / ceiling / proposed / recommended / estimated), `dup_rank` (>1 = redundant copy), `geo_suspect` (city disagrees with the source link), `anomaly` (implausible figure), `state_norm` (normalized state). Vendors covered include ALPR (Flock, Vigilant, Genetec), body cameras/tasers (Axon, WatchGuard, Utility, Getac), gunshot detection (ShotSpotter/SoundThinking), face recognition (Clearview AI, DataWorks Plus), fingerprint biometrics (Idemia AFIS/Livescan, filed separately under `sv:biometrics`), data fusion and OSINT (Fusus, Peregrine, LexisNexis Accurint, Thomson Reuters CLEAR), phone forensics (Cellebrite, GrayKey, Magnet), drones (Skydio, BRINC, DJI), cameras/VMS (Verkada, Avigilon), cell-site simulators, CAD/RMS records systems, photo enforcement, jail-call and student monitoring. Every row carries a VERBATIM quote from the minutes and a link to the source document, and a row only publishes if that quote was found character-for-character in the source text. READ THE `ledger` COLUMN: `sv:<category>:<vendor>`. `radio_infra` (two-way radios), `rms` (records/CAD software), `biometrics` (fingerprints) and `not_surveillance` are NOT surveillance sensors — exclude them before quoting any surveillance figure.

Data license: CC BY 4.0 · Data source: MyTown

2 rows where state = "MI" and vendor = "Flock Group Inc." sorted by amount descending

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vendor 1

  • Flock Group Inc. · 2 ✖

state 1

ledger 1

Link rowid vendor city state spend_date product amount ▲ quote source_document mytown_record ledger amount_type dup_rank geo_suspect anomaly state_norm
1878 1878 Flock Group Inc. Macomb County MI 2023-06-14 approve contract 100837.0 Motion to recommend that the Board of Commissioners approve the contract with Flock Group Inc. to provide software and hardware for automatic license plate detection from July 25, 2023 to December 31, 2024 in the total amount of $100,837.25 for the Sheriffs Office. https://macombcomi.api.civicclerk.com/v1/Meetings/GetMeetingFileStream(fileId=18151,plainText=false) https://mytown.theboringparts.com/city/macombcomi/2023/#m740018 flock recommended 1 0 0 MI
1950 1950 Flock Group Inc. St. Clair County MI 2022-10-20 approve agreement 90600.0 Moved by David Rushing, supported by Dave Vandenbossche, to forward to the Regular Board meeting the recommendation to approve the agreement with Flock Group Inc. for license plate readers and service for a two year term after a 60-day trial period in the amount not to exceed $90,600.. https://stclaircomi.api.civicclerk.com/v1/Meetings/GetMeetingFileStream(fileId=351,plainText=false) https://mytown.theboringparts.com/city/stclaircomi/2022/#m802067 flock ceiling 1 0 0 MI

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CREATE TABLE surveillance_spending (
  vendor TEXT, city TEXT, state TEXT, spend_date TEXT, product TEXT,
  amount REAL, quote TEXT, source_document TEXT, mytown_record TEXT, ledger TEXT, amount_type TEXT, dup_rank INTEGER, geo_suspect INTEGER, anomaly INTEGER, state_norm TEXT);
CREATE INDEX ix_surv_vendor ON surveillance_spending(vendor);
CREATE INDEX ix_surv_state ON surveillance_spending(state);
CREATE INDEX ix_surv_amount ON surveillance_spending(amount);
CREATE INDEX ix_surv_ledger ON surveillance_spending(ledger);