The Milwaukee Police Administration Building downtown. (Photo by Isiah Holmes/Wisconsin Examiner)

Across the nation, law enforcement agencies are accessing Flock Automatic License Plate Reader (ALPR) camera databases, regardless of whether they have their own contract for the AI-powered system. Researchers from 404 Media published a data trove derived from Flock audits earlier this week. Although the audit data came from the Danville Police Department in Illinois, Wisconsin Examiner found that intelligence units within the Milwaukee Police Department (MPD) also appear in the database.  

The audit data shows that last year on July 15 and Oct. 21, personnel from the Southeastern Threat Analysis Center (STAC) — a homeland security-focused arm of the MPD’s fusion center — conducted a total of three searches within Danville PD’s Flock network. STAC gathers and disseminates intelligence across eight counties in southeastern Wisconsin. 

MPD’s own Fusion Division is co-located with the STAC. Together the units operate a “real time event center,” a vast network of both city-owned and privately owned cameras and operate Milwaukee’s gunshot detection system known as Shotspotter. They also monitor social media and conduct various types of mobile phone-related investigations. STAC has also explored the use of drones, facial recognition technology and predictive intelligence.

MPD’s Flock searches were logged under the user name “D. Whi” from “Milwaukee WI PD – STAC”. In the dataset’s “reason” column, the searches were recorded as “HSI investigation” and “HSI vehicle loader.” Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) specialize in matters of immigration, illegal exporting, cyber crime and national security.

By tapping into Danville’s Flock data, according to the audit, STAC was able to access 4,893 Flock networks and an equal number of individual devices, such as cameras, for the July 15 search alone. The other two searches from October reached 5,425 Flock networks and devices and captured data from a one-month period. 

404 Media’s investigation focused on how Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has accessed Flock databases nationwide, despite not having a contract with the company themselves, and how various agencies appeared to conduct immigration-related searches. Whereas many searches were logged as “immigration violation,” “ICE” or even “ICE ASSIST,” others only noted the involvement of HSI. 

In a statement sent Wednesday morning, an MPD spokesperson denied that STAC’s use of Danville PD’s Flock network was immigration-related. “Information regarding this investigation is classified and not available as it is ongoing,” the spokesperson wrote in an email to Wisconsin Examiner. “I can confirm it is related to a criminal investigation with HSI and not immigration related.” The spokesperson later added that this was a “HIDTA investigation,” referring to a federal task force linked to the federal High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area program. 

MPD’s HIDTA units are attached to the department’s Special Investigations Division, a separate branch from the Fusion division and STAC. “The majority of HIDTA and STAC investigations are classified,” the spokesperson wrote in the statement. “Oftentimes, these investigations involved confidential informants and sometimes it could take years to resolve.”

Several police departments in Milwaukee County utilize Flock cameras. MPD entered into its contract in 2022. Over 1,300 registered cameras operate across the city as part of Community Connect, a program supported by the Milwaukee Police Foundation, according to the program’s web page, with nearly 900 “integrated” cameras which grant MPD real-time access. 

Both the use of automatic license plate readers and MPD’s ability to participate in immigration enforcement are governed by specific policies. The department’s immigration policy, SOP-130, cautions that “proactive immigration enforcement by local police can be detrimental to our mission and policing philosophy when doing so deters some individuals from participating in their civic obligation to assist the police.” The policy limits MPD’s ability to assist ICE with detaining or gathering information about a person to “only when a judicial warrant is presented” and when the target is suspected of involvement in terrorism, espionage, a transnational criminal street gang, violent felony, sexual offense against a minor or was a previously deported felon. 

A curiously timed public hearing 

Privacy advocates have raised concerns and filed lawsuits over Flock’s ability to collect and store data without a warrant. The license plate reader policy – SOP 735 – allows personnel to access data stored “for the purposes of conducting crime trend analyses” but only when those activities are approved by a supervisor and are intended to “assist the agency in the performance of its duties.” 

MPD personnel may use Flock to “look for potentially suspicious activity or other anomalies that might be consistent with criminal or terrorist activity” and are not prohibited from “accessing and comparing personal identifying information of one or more individuals who are associated with a scanned vehicle as part of the process of analyzing stored non-alert data.” Automatic license plate reading technology captures information from any passing car. In some cases, investigators may also place specific vehicles on a Be On the Lookout (BOLO) list, also known as a “hot list”, which notifies law enforcement whenever a specific vehicle is seen by a license plate reader-equipped camera. 

A Thursday morning public hearing held by the city’s Finance and Personnel Committee considered whether more Flock cameras should be added to Milwaukee’s already existing network. Ald. Scott Spiker spoke in support of the cameras, and said he worked to install license plate readers in his own district. Spiker described having discussions with local business district leaders and MPD’s fusion center, which resulted in cameras being deployed on 27th Street. “Don’t ask me where, because I won’t tell you,” said Spiker, adding that the cameras “serve a variety of purposes” from combating car theft to aiding Amber and Silver Alerts. 

“There’s going to a broader question, which I imagine will be a subject of the public testimony, however, and I’m fine hearing it, but ultimately there’s going to be a discussion to be had in the city of anything that smacks of surveillance software, and what sort of oversight is provided, and should be provided,” said Spiker. He added that such a discussion “will be had in full in Public Safety” and that although he welcomed public testimony, the committee was there to discuss approving a contract, and not concerns over surveillance. 

“The camera’s already in use by MPD, and in use by our parking checkers,” said Spiker. “When they do night parking enforcement, they use ALPR’s. When they do zoning enforcement during the day, they use ALPR’s. So these are already in use. They have no facial recognition or any of the stuff that’s been in the news. But it is a legitimate question to ask what degree of surveillance of any sort, given the national context, do we want to have oversight over?” 

Spiker said that there’s a “big debate” about surveillance but that “we can’t sort that out today.” 

Amanda Merkwae, advocacy director with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Wisconsin, complained that the public had not been alerted ahead of time about the discussion of the Flock contract. “I’ve been checking daily and the documents in this file and the text of the resolution weren’t posted until yesterday [Wednesday] afternoon,” said Merkwae. “So I think for an item that has significant implications for the civil liberties of Milwaukeeans, particularly the most vulnerable resident, that’s concerning.” 

The agenda had been out for over a week, and was amended a couple of days before the hearing, Ald. Marina Dimitrijevic later explained. 

Merkwae said, “We know that ICE has gained access to troves of data from sanctuary cities to aid in its raids and immigration enforcement actions, including data from the vast network of license plate readers across the country.” She cited a 404 Media investigation earlier this month, which found that Flock is building a massive people look-up tool which pulls in different forms of data, including license plate reader data, “in order to track specific individuals without a warrant.” 

Merkwae also referenced 404 Media’s findings this week revealing immigration-related look-ups, as well as the classified investigation that involved MPD’s intelligence units. The advocacy director also questioned what MPD’s policies mean in practice when federal or out-of-state law enforcement want to access its Flock databases. 

“If law enforcement told us that they wanted to put a tracking device on every single car in the country so that we know where every car is every single moment of the day, and we’re going to build a database of all those locations run by an unaccountable private company, and accessible to every law enforcement agency across the country without needing any type of a warrant, I think we would be alarmed and we would have some follow-up questions,” said Merkwae. “So at the end of the day, we think the public deserves to know how it is being surveilled and the common council deserves to know the answers to some pretty basic questions before approving contracts for surveillance technology that’s deployed without a warrant.”

In 2023, Fox 6 published a map of Flock cameras operated by MPD. The map, broken up by aldermadic district, shows a large cluster of cameras located on the North Side around District 7, as well as a cluster on the South Side around District 8. Smaller clusters of cameras were located on the East, far Southwest Side and Northwest Side of the city. 

 

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After Merkwae testified, Spiker raised a question about whether public testimony should continue, given open meetings laws. A lengthy discussion followed about which issues and topics may be discussed in the hearing by committee members, which halted public testimony for over 20 minutes as alders heard from city attorneys and MPD. Ald. Miele Coggs said hearing the public’s concerns before a contract is approved for surveillance technology was important. Ald. Dimitrijevic also stressed that public comment was an important step, saying that the committee would not go into closed session to discuss the Flock contract before the public finished speaking, or otherwise limit public testimony. 

When public testimony continued, Milwaukee residents shared further concerns about the technology. Ron Jansen said that the city has seen a surge of surveillance gear used by MPD. “Between the growth of a fascist regime in Washington …  and our own militarized and violent police force here in Milwaukee, it’s clear that the last thing we need is more ways for police to track us,” Jansen said. He added that Flock networks are capable of tracking and cataloging “people’s every movement throughout a given day” even if they’re not the target of an investigation.

Other residents, including locals from Spiker’s district and representatives from the court diversion non-profit program JusticePoint, also spoke against Flock’s expansion. Tara Cavazos, executive director of the South 27th Street Business District, said Flock cameras had made her area safer. “We are the initiators of these three additions to the Flock network,” said Cavazos. “And we donated the funds for two years of use of these Flock cameras. So they’re not coming from MPD’s budget, it’s coming out of our budgets. These Flocks are not going to be placed in a neighborhood, it’s not specific to any vulnerable communities, they are in business districts on state and county highways.” 

Cavazos said that since Flocks have been deployed, car thefts declined “significantly on the south end of our corridor, where the border between Milwaukee and Greenfield is,” and that “we’ve caught a homicide suspect.” Leif Otteson, an executive director of two business districts, said that he hears from people who want more surveillance. Otteson recalled working to expand the city’s ring camera network, which STAC and other parts of MPD’s fusion center have access to. Otteson has talked with people who want cameras in their community gardens and other areas. “I just want to make that clear, that people like myself are getting those requests,” said Otteson. 

Once public testimony concluded, the committee went into closed session for over an hour. The discussion pertained to an unspecified “non-standard” provision in the Flock contract, which had been raised by the city attorney’s office. When the committee returned to open session, they voted 4-1 to hold the file due to legal concerns with the contract until the next committee meeting on June 18. 

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