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County OKs two-year Block Safety vehicle-search system; commissioners question privacy safeguards
Summary
The Muskegon County board approved a two-year, roughly $49,000 agreement to use Block Safety vehicle-still searches across participating agencies; commissioners pressed the sheriff on data retention, machine‑learning use and access controls.
Muskegon County commissioners on Tuesday authorized a two-year agreement with Block Safety to adopt an integrated vehicle-targeting system countywide, a tool the sheriff described as a network of cameras that captures still photos of vehicles and shares hot-list hits with participating agencies.
"These are cameras that will be placed in strategic locations throughout the County," Sheriff Michael Fulton said. "The system itself, it will not tell us who the driver is. It does not tell us the registration of the vehicle. It provides none of that information. Any information that goes into the system is only saved for 30 days and it's automatically purged." He added the system produces still images rather than continuous video and that city policy documents include prohibited uses such as immigration enforcement and facial recognition.
Commissioners asked about "machine learning" functions and whether the system could be used for other purposes such as speed enforcement. Fulton said the product is configured to search for attributes entered by investigators (color, bumper stickers, vehicle description) and that the system is not a general surveillance camera nor a speed-monitoring radar device. He said hits are human-verified before action.
Privacy and constitutional concerns were raised during discussion. One commissioner asked for clarification on how alerts and cross-jurisdiction sharing work; Fulton said agencies given access will receive shared hot-list alerts and that the county expects to be one of several participating agencies in the region. Commissioners also asked about vendor maintenance, software updates and replacement of malfunctioning hardware; Fulton said the vendor handles installation and maintenance.
By roll call the commission approved the two-year agreement; commissioners voting in favor outnumbered any opposing voices and the motion carried.
Next steps: the sheriff's office will complete contracting, implement access controls consistent with the city's published use policy and provide the commission with oversight details as the system is deployed.
