Milwaukee is tightening the leash around Flock automatic license plate reader cameras, with elected leaders calling for more oversight and restrictions as investigations into misuse by officers continue. 

Flock cameras utilize AI-powered technology to identify vehicles and license plates that pass within their view on roadways. The data is stored for several weeks or longer, allowing law enforcement officers from anywhere across the country to search for specific vehicles as long as their agency has a contract with Flock. 

An analysis by the Wisconsin Examiner found that at least 221 Wisconsin law enforcement agencies searched the Flock network during the first half of 2025, and that officers often used vague search terms to query the system. That same year, the multi-billion dollar Flock Safety company spent $102,000 lobbying the state government for grants to allow law enforcement agencies to acquire license plate reader cameras, though the Republican-backed bills were unsuccessful. 

On Tuesday, a directive went out from the office of Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley to county departments and the Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office to limit Flock-related operations on county property, and to work towards adopting new transparency and accountability standards. 

“Public safety partners should have the right tools to keep Milwaukee County safe, but unchecked surveillance isn’t the answer,” said Crowley, who is running against Republican Tom Tiffany to become Wisconsin’s next governor, in a statement. “We have seen what can happen when this technology operates without clear rules, transparency and accountability. Protecting our residents’ privacy and maintaining the public’s trust is a responsibility I take seriously. That is why I am directing all County departments to limit the usage of all Flock camera systems and establish safeguards proactively, before a breach of public trust can occur.”

Crowley is calling on the Office of Corporation Counsel and the Information Management Services Division to evaluate current policies governing the use of any surveillance tech and to develop binding standards for its use. The standards will determine how surveillance technology can be used, how long data is kept, who can access that data and why, and limit when data is shared with an emphasis on prohibiting use for federal immigration enforcement without a judicial warrant, a county press release stated. These standards would also establish independent audits and enforceable consequences when surveillance technology is misused. 

Crowley is also calling on other local elected leaders to look closely at their own use of Flock cameras and adopt similar policies. Ultimately, these efforts could result in the adoption of a consistent standard across the county for Flock. 

In April Tiffany said he had never heard of Flock cameras, when he was asked about controversy around their use. “I’m going to sound ignorant on this, what are Flock cameras?” Tiffany said during a virtual question-and-answer session. 

More recently, Tiffany said that “government should not be building an AI surveillance network that tracks law-abiding Wisconsinites everywhere they drive.” Tiffany said that he would pause state funding for Flock and create a task force to establish stronger protections, penalties for misuse, limits on data sharing, and safeguards against foreign adversaries. Tiffany criticized Crowley for “repeatedly” seeking to install “more red-light cameras, speed cameras, and massive funding increases for automated license plate readers.” 

Police departments often acquire Flock cameras through non-competitive sole source contracts which bypass a public bidding process, keeping local councils and residents from even knowing that the technology has been acquired.

The changes in Milwaukee County come after the Milwaukee Police Department announced on Monday that it will be further restricting its Flock network. In a Monday press release the department said that it “supports the use of technology to assist in solving crimes that cause harm to our community,” and that new technology can help solve cases more quickly than traditional methods for investigations. 

“With that, we recognize that the use of such technology, like Flock technology, comes with great responsibility,” the department said in the press release. “These tools must always be used to prevent and reduce harm, not create more.” The department acknowledged the growing discontent and angst over Flock technology in the community, saying that “we do not dismiss these opinions.” The department went on to say that it “acknowledges the harm that former department members have caused that has damaged the trust we work so hard to build” and that it “acknowledges the human error that comes with the use of technology” and that the department is “working tirelessly to reduce error as much as we can.”

The Milwaukee police  announced that access to Flock has been restricted to supervisors only, and that the department will no longer share its Flock data with neighboring jurisdictions. Furthermore, the cameras may only be used for “Part I crimes” such as homicide, rape, robbery, aggravated assault including non-fatal shootings, burglary, larceny, motor vehicle theft, arson, human trafficking, as well as for critically missing people and investigating drug trafficking organizations. 

Earlier this year, the department began revamping its auditing procedures and limited the number of officers with access to Flock cameras to an “as needed basis,” risk manager James Lewis told the Examiner in June.

“MPD will continue to robustly audit its Flock systems,” the department’s Monday press release reads. “We are better together!”

The changes were followed on Tuesday by a statement from Mayor Cavalier Johnson that while technology can help law enforcement, “it is essential that we recognize the limitations and dangers associated with these tools.” Johnson added that “I recognize the benefits of the Flock cameras system.” He said that “on multiple occasions this tool has located critical missing persons and helped apprehend violent criminals in Milwaukee. The technology has also been misused in several notable instances, both locally and nationally, compromising the rights of individuals.” 

Several of those cases played out in Milwaukee and elsewhere in Wisconsin. Josue Ayala of Milwaukee, Cristian Morales of Menasha, and Frank McGrath of Kenosha County were all charged with either misdemeanor or felony misconduct in public office after using Flock to surveil their current or former romantic partners. Ayala was given a year of probation and avoided incarceration, whereas Morales was sentenced to six months in jail and three years of probation while avoiding prison time. McGrath’s case is still ongoing. 

In July, Tehrangi Chapman, a Milwaukee police internal affairs detective who was involved in investigating Ayala’s misuse of Flock, was also charged with using the cameras and car-mounted GPS devices to keep tabs on someone who he’d surveilled since 2019, before Flock even arrived in Milwaukee. Chapman has been charged with felonies, and his case is still ongoing. On Aug. 26, Chapman pled not guilty, and is expected back in court for a scheduling conference on Oct. 7, according to online court records. 

Each of the officers who’ve been found to have abused their access to Flock used terms like “suspicious” or “investigation” to search the Flock network, which were common terms found in the Examiner’s 2025 analysis. Other cases have also emerged, such as that of a man who is now suing the Waukesha County Sheriff’s Department after a deputy searched him in Flock following a traffic stop, for which the man sought to file a complaint against the deputy. 

As misconduct cases have emerged, communities across the state have opted to drop their Flock cameras including Kaukauna, Sturgeon Bay, Verona, Appleton, Oshkosh, Dane County and Stoughton. 

In Oshkosh, the request to cancel the Flock contract actually came from the police chief, who told local elected officials that representatives of the multi-billion dollar Flock Safety company had misled him on whether the cameras were able to develop heatmaps depicting a vehicle’s movement patterns. 

Elsewhere, community members have packed public meetings to tell local officials that they don’t want to be placed under perpetual surveillance, expressing fears about how the cameras could be misused by both local and federal law enforcement. Police leaders have had mixed responses to the concerns from residents. The police chief in Green Bay has opted to keep the cameras, citing their usefulness in solving violent crime while also acknowledging that steps need to be taken to protect people’s privacy, while a chief in the small city of Chetek threatened to do background checks on residents who spoke against the cameras in a public meeting.

Exactly how to handle the cameras is still a question local and national leaders are trying to answer. In August,  President Donald Trump said that the cameras have “pros and cons” and that “it’s being studied right now, we’ll have an answer soon as to our views on it.” When asked whether he’d consider banning Flock cameras statewide, Democratic Gov. Tony Evers said, “I don’t know what the solution is, but I think there’s people all across our country that’s talking about it.” Evers said he recently talked with Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz about Flock cameras. “Whether that [banning the cameras] is the answer, all’s I know is that we need to have an answer.”

Flock Safety, the multibillion-dollar producer of Flock automatic license plate reader cameras, spent $102,000 in Wisconsin last year lobbying for state legislation to increase its nationwide surveillance network. That’s according to a report by OpenSecrets, which found that the controversial company dedicated over $2 million on lobbying efforts across the country in 2025.

The findings come as communities continue pushing back against Flock cameras. Some areas have cancelled contracts and removed the cameras altogether, while others have opted to increase oversight and auditing of how the cameras are used by police.

Flock cameras work by photographing every vehicle and license plate that passes by their view. The images and information are stored in a database that can be searched by law enforcement officers who work at agencies with Flock contracts. In many cases, police officers may query tens of thousands of cameras at once to determine whether any have sighted a vehicle sought by law enforcement. Using the captured data, police departments can also use Flock to keep track of a vehicle’s regular movement patterns.

In Wisconsin, Flock spent the $102,000 lobbying for a pair of Republican bills, Assembly Bill 300 and Senate Bill 299, which would have provided grants to allow local law enforcement agencies to obtain and install automatic license plate reader cameras. The legislation failed to pass in 2025.

Police departments have defended Flock cameras as valuable tools to combat crime from homicides to car theft. Critics, however have pointed to cases of officers searching Flock’s network for questionable or illegal reasons. Some departments have used Flock for immigration enforcement as the Trump administration ramped up its plans to carry out mass deportations. One sheriff’s deputy in Texas used Flock to locate a woman who’d recently had an abortion, fueling fears that local law enforcement were working to criminalize reproductive healthcare following the overturning of Roe v. Wade. In many other cases, male officers used Flock to monitor or stalk people, particularly current or former romantic partners.

Several of these cases have played out in Wisconsin. Earlier this month, former Menasha officer Cristian Morales was sentenced to six months in jail and three months probation for misusing Flock to stalk his ex-girlfriend. Meanwhile, new felony charges have been levied against former Kenosha County sheriff’s deputy Frank McGrath, who was found to have used Flock and a squad car tracking system to monitor his girlfriend, also a Kenosha sheriff deputy. 

Josue Ayala, a former Milwaukee officer, was charged for the same behavior. Ayala avoided jail time and instead received a year of probation after taking a guilty plea. More recently, Milwaukee Detective Tehrangi Chapman was charged with using Flock to monitor someone he has been accused of stalking since 2019, years before Flock came to Milwaukee. Chapman was one of the internal affairs detectives who investigated the allegations of Ayala’s Flock misuse. 

Each of the officers in these cases were charged with felony misconduct in public office, except for Ayala, who was charged with a misdemeanor. 

Questions around how the cameras are used have led to a distrust of the Flock Safety technology itself. Wisconsin communities including Kaukauna, Sturgeon Bay, Verona, Appleton, Oshkosh, Dane County and Stoughton have all cancelled their Flock camera contracts. 

Despite having several officers charged with misusing Flock and sustained calls from the public to stop using the technology, Milwaukee has retained its Flock contract. The police department has cited it as an asset in quickly developing leads and solving crimes. On Tuesday, however, 12 of Milwaukee’s 15 common council members signed a letter asking both the Fire and Police Commission and Police Chief Jeffrey Norman to review the department’s use of Flock cameras and to consider additional safeguards before the city begins to shape its 2027 budget — three times the number of alders who signed a similar letter in March. 

The council is asking for more information on how the Flock system is used, including a list of every agency that shares license plate reader data with the Milwaukee Police Department, and every agency with which the department shares its own data. The council is also demanding a complete accounting of searches by outside agencies using Milwaukee’s Flock network, as well as those conducted by the department on behalf of another agency. The letter also is requesting a list of all system users and their searches. 

In June, as controversy over Flock grew, the Milwaukee Police Department took steps to increase auditing procedures to flag suspicious searches, and restrict the number of officers who had access to the Flock system. The department also said that it shares its Flock network with state partners, but not with federal agencies. 

But the common council letter asks for more, including for case numbers and specific justifications for every Flock search, automated misuse detection, independent auditing, prohibitions on using Flock for immigration enforcement without a judicial warrant and regular public reporting to both the Fire and Police Commission and council. 

The letter also urges that, as discussions begin over the 2027 city budget, the city examines how Milwaukee’s Flock camera network has been funded over recent years, including how the contracts were granted multiple waivers as they were renewed. The city’s waivers, along with the use of sole source contracts with Flock, has made it possible for Milwaukee’s camera network to grow without  approval from the council. 

In response to the letter, MPD said in a statement that it will work with the commission and council to respond to concerns, and that it is committed to transparency and dialogue. 

On Monday 32-year-old Menasha police officer Cristian Morales was sentenced for misusing Flock license plate reader cameras for unlawful targeted surveillance. Morales pleaded no contest in Outagamie County court and was sentenced to six months in jail, followed by three years of probation.

His sentencing comes as Wisconsin communities push back against Flock cameras and call for more transparency and control over police surveillance technologies. 

Morales was working at the Menasha Police Department when, according to a criminal complaint, he conducted seven off duty searches using between 15,234 and 92,702 individual cameras across Flock’s nationwide network. The AI-powered cameras perpetually photograph vehicles and license plates passing within their view. The images are cataloged in a database that can be searched at will by law enforcement agencies with Flock contracts. Using the intelligence collected by Flock, law enforcement can study patterns of movement for targeted vehicles so they can be intercepted later on, or develop leads for ongoing investigations.

Morales sought a vehicle belonging to his ex-girlfriend, who reached out to the Appleton Police Department about her suspicions that she was being tracked, triggering an investigation. When officers confronted Morales, he said his actions were due to “desperation, and bad judgement, combined with a lack of sleep.” 

On Monday in court, the victim described a “pattern” of controlling and violent behavior by Morales, and said that she continues to suffer from anxiety and an inability to get through day-to-day tasks, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported. “I am here because I lived through something that changed my life,” she said in court. Morales told the court that he grew up in Menasha  wanted to serve the community since childhood. “I take responsibility for the decision I made,” Morales said, WBAY 2 reported. “In a moment of desperation, I made a mistake that I deeply regret, and I never would have imagined that my decision would bring me here where I am today, where I’ve affected so many people around me.” 

Judge Mark Schroeder called Morales an “oathbreaker.” Schroeder said Morales abused his authority. “He sought out the privilege of trying to keep his community safe and protecting the public in the communities in which he resided,” said Schroeder. “He sought out the tools that are handed to him as a result of that oath that he took and then broke. Sought out those tools with the purposes that are designed to keep people safe, and they do. And then abused it for his own personal and nefarious purposes.”

Inconsistent accountability

Schroeder’s assertion that Flock cameras keep people safe is something communities across the state and country are now debating. Morales’ situation is also far from unique, in a system where officers face inconsistent penalties for misusing the camera network. 

While Morales was initially charged with stalking, he was ultimately sentenced for felony misconduct in public office. A month after Morales was charged in Menasha, Milwaukee officer Josue Ayala was charged with misdemeanor misconduct in public office for also using Flock while on duty to track two people, including someone he had been in a romantic relationship with. The victim realized that Ayala searched her vehicle after using the haveibeenflocked website, and reported it to police. He used “investigation” as his search term to describe his use of  Flock, the most common search term according to a 2025 analysis of Wisconsin law enforcement’s use of Flock. Ayala took a plea deal last month, pleading guilty to misdemeanor attempted misconduct in public office and receiving 12 months probation while avoiding jail and prison time. 

A case involving Kenosha County Deputy Frank McGrath is still in process. McGrath used Flock and a squad car tracking system called Polaris to monitor his girlfriend, who was also a Kenosha County deputy. McGrath entered “suspicious,” another common Flock search term used by officers but, like Morales, was off duty and didn’t tie case numbers to his searches. A Kenosha sheriff’s lieutenant first noticed the unusual searches and confronted McGrath. He initially attempted to mislead the supervisor, but then admitted to doing the searches. The lieutenant also talked to McGrath’s target, who said she was aware of the searches, but didn’t report them despite feeling that the activity violated policy. McGrath had been jealous of her friendship with a male coworker. 

Although McGrath left the sheriff’s office, he was not charged with a crime. A John Doe petition to have a judge review probable cause to charge McGrath has been sealed, and the Kenosha County district attorney has said that he’s waiting for the conclusion of a criminal investigation into McGrath’s conduct. The Racine County Sheriff’s Office said in March that it is conducting the investigation. TMJ4 reported in July that at least five police officers in Racine County have been investigated for Flock misuse, none of whom had been criminally charged. 

In both Morales’ and Ayala’s cases, prior conduct had raised concerns. Morales left the Outagamie County Sheriff’s Office in 2024, according to the Badger Project. His supervisors noted that he nearly caused a car accident during a traffic stop, and had other problems. Morales was allowed to resign rather than be terminated, and was hired by the Menasha Police Department eight months later. Ayala had undergone previous internal investigations both in Milwaukee and when he worked at the Glendale Police Department. 

In early July, another Milwaukee officer was charged with misusing Flock. This time it was an internal affairs detective, Tehrangi Chapman, who was charged with felony misconduct in public office and misdemeanor misuse of a GPS device. Chapman had used Flock to monitor someone he’d been watching  since 2019, even before Milwaukee first signed its contract with Flock in 2022. Chapman had been involved in investigating Ayala’s misuse of Flock before his own misuse of the system had been discovered.

Community members fighting back

While the courts work out whether or how to hold officers accountable for abusing Flock, communities are also demanding accountability from local officials. Several areas including Kaukauna, Sturgeon Bay, Verona, Appleton, Oshkosh, and Dane County have all canceled their contracts with Flock. 

The reasons vary, from growing concerns that the cameras could be accessed by federal agencies including ICE, to the growing list of officers who have used the cameras for personal vendettas. In Verona, residents and local officials said that while they trust their local police department, they don’t trust Flock Safety — the multi-billion dollar company behind the cameras — or the federal government. Even President Donald Trump recently said that with the cameras “you have pros and cons” and that “it’s being studied right now, we’ll have an answer soon as to our views on it.”

The police chief of Oshkosh pushed to cancel the city’s contract after finding out that a company representative had misled city officials when asked whether Flock could generate heat maps depicting a vehicle’s movement patterns. As it turned out, the cameras are fully capable of doing that. Over 50 agencies statewide have canceled their Flock contracts, according to the grassroots group Deflock.

Not all police departments have chosen to give up Flock. The Milwaukee Police Department has repeatedly said that the cameras have been useful in solving violent crimes and locating missing people. The Green Bay police chief credited Flock with helping his department to become proactive in combatting a rise in violent crime. But he also acknowledged that privacy needs to be respected at all times. Auditing procedures have been stepped up in Milwaukee. Green Bay limited which  agencies can access its Flock network, and conducted its own audit of potential misuse. Meanwhile, Flock Safety has developed new tools to boost auditing and limit the ability for officers to conduct searches using vague terms and without case numbers. 

Meanwhile controversy and cancellations continue. Recently, a woman was pulled over by Brookfield officers at gunpoint because her vehicle had been mistakenly entered into the Flock system as being connected to a homicide investigation. The Milwaukee Police Department blamed personnel for not removing the car from the system rather than Flock itself, and the Brookfield police chief defended the actions of his officers.

In late July, Stoughton’s common council voted to discontinue its Flock contract amid growing concerns from residents. Among the issues citizens raised was that one of the cameras was pointed directly at the Cascade Falls apartment complex, which offers affordable housing in the area. One man told the council members that “I wouldn’t want a camera in my face all the time, so why would I want other people to live like that?” A woman named Carrie called the cameras “ominous and unwelcoming” and said, “being surveilled by your government says a lot about what your government thinks about you.” Another man questioned why a vote was needed to remove the cameras when they were installed without a vote or public input. 

Amanda Merkwae, policy and advocacy director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin, says the lack of public input or even notice of the purchase of surveillance technologies is due to sole source no-bid contracts. These kinds of contracts bypass the public procurement process. 

“There’s no public notice, let alone clear information about if there’s even approval that happened at the common council or common council committee when they’re doing these no-bid contracts,” Merkwae told the Examiner. Companies win sole source, no-bid contracts by arguing either that only they can provide the service the police want, or that their technology is proprietary. 

“You have a police department that is maybe being advertised some product,” Merkwae said. “You have this multibillion-dollar company that’s sole goal is to increase value for their shareholders. They don’t have, like, the police department’s best interest as their driving force. They don’t have the interest of the public as their driving force. They’re trying to make money. And so, they have a huge incentive to use no-bid contracts.”

As Flock comes under more scrutiny, other companies are moving to fill the gap. Axon, which produces body cameras and other technologies for police departments, is pushing license plate readers to cities that are ditching Flock. Merkwae said Axon has other products like Fusus, a real-time crime-center platform used by the Milwaukee Police Department, that integrates private surveillance cameras, license plate readers, body cameras, and other feeds into a single interface. 

“I think that it is ludicrous to just trade one for-profit Big Brother for another for-profit Big Brother that is, like, trying to make money,” said Merkwae. “That’s their goal.” She added that local officials need to ask tough questions of both the police and surveillance companies about how the technologies work, how they can be exploited, and how citizens can be protected. She said that “a bunch of this has flown under the radar with quietly signed no-bid contracts.”

In some parts of the country, local governments have passed ordinances like Community Control Over Police Surveillance (CCOPS), which provides a framework so that the public has a say in whether communities adopt surveillance technologies. Under CCOPS, the community is given notice whenever a police department either wants to acquire a new surveillance system or renew a contract for an existing one. It provides local residents the opportunity to ask questions about how the technology works, how much it costs, and other details, while also providing an opportunity to contest its adoption. 

Even these ordinances have their limits. “CCOPS is a helpful baseline but also want to recognize that in the 10 years since CCOPS laws have been on the books, the scope and power of AI-powered warrantless dragnet surveillance tech has just expanded so much,” Merkwae said. “And the way that tech aggregates data and then integrates all these systems together, it’s like a new frontier in terms of how government entities can protect their data and protect their residents. So I think that CCOPS ordinances should be — or models like that — should be the baseline. But at this point in time, when these tools are so profoundly powerful, I think that it should be up to the local residents in a community, like, what is the line? How stringent do you want these requirements on the front end to be before allowing one of these for-profit companies to come into their jurisdiction and surveil people?”