DEARBORN, Mich. – During their meeting on April 22, the Dearborn City Council approved a $720,000 five-year contract to implement the Fusus Real-Time surveillance system.
The voluntary program, similar to Detroit’s “Project Greenlight,” will enable the Dearborn police to access emergency calls and live camera feeds from participating businesses and residents.
The vote makes Dearborn the second city in Michigan to use Fusus, following Kalamazoo, which did so in 2023.
The program will be partially funded by federal grants, along with $133,000 from confiscated drug assets, and will also receive additional support from the University of Michigan-Dearborn as part of a public safety partnership.
The university said in a statement:
“We are one of several community partners collaborating with the City of Dearborn to share camera access for public safety incidents,” Kristin Palm, UM-Dearborn’s Director of Communications, said.
“We have learned over the years from numerous tragedies at institutions across the U.S., including here in Michigan, how important it is during critical incidents for agencies to be able to work together and share information in real-time when a crisis arises.”
While the stated focus of the program is on public safety, Fusus and other similar programs are seen by civil liberties groups such as the ACLU as a way to monitor and track people, particularly pro-Palestinian protesters, who have become targets of the Trump Administration.
“That’s really concerning, especially when it comes to the many, many protests that have occurred in Dearborn,” Ramis Wadood, an attorney for ACLU-Michigan, said on Tuesday (May 27).
“There are hundreds, if not thousands, of people that attend those protests, and they might hear about this program, this technology, and think, oh, no, the government’s watching me wherever I go,” Wadood said.
Between October 2023 and October 2024, there were 80 protests in Dearborn, which is the largest Arab American majority city in the United States, where many of whom immigrated to the country from Palestine.
Wadood says that systems such as Fusus may start off with public safety as the goal, but could be the setup for deeper surveillance of American citizens.
“Real-time crime centers like this, they’re really just a gateway drug into other surveillance technologies, especially these plug-and-play systems that have integrations across different technologies,” Wadood said. ”What’s going to happen here, which is what has happened in other jurisdictions in Michigan across the country, is that the city buys one technology.
Then there are 10, 15, 20 plug-ins that the city can buy next year, the year after that, and create this massive network of different surveillance technologies."
Dearborn Police Chief Issa Shahin issued a statement addressing those concerns, saying:
“The safety and security of our residents is the top priority of the Dearborn Police Department. This mission has directed our plans to integrate the Fusus Real-Time Crime Center, which provides live video and information during an emergency to aid our officers in their response.”
“This initiative utilizes already existing visual infrastructure previously installed by businesses, community organizations, and other groups for on-site security. The FUSUS system is not equipped for the integration of facial recognition technology.”
The Fusus System is scheduled to take effect later this summer.
