Neenah votes to end Flock contract early

Our Take

Credit to WBAY TV-2 in Green Bay for catching a story that deserves way more attention: a police chief — not an activist, not a city council skeptic, but the top cop himself — standing up to say the department's ALPR data practices raised real privacy red flags. That's the kind of internal accountability we almost never see, and it's exactly why Neenah's unanimous vote to terminate early should be a wake-up call for every city still rubber-stamping these contracts without reading the fine print.

Flock's pitch is always the same: a few cameras, a quiet subscription fee, and a promise of safer streets. What rarely gets discussed in the sales meeting is who else gets access to the data, how long it's retained, and what happens when a national network of plate reads becomes searchable by agencies with wildly different standards than your local department. When a police chief himself can't square that with his conscience, it's worth asking why so many city councils signed off without asking the same questions.

Neenah just proved that these contracts aren't permanent fixtures — they're decisions that can be unwound once elected officials and residents start paying attention. If your town has Flock cameras, check our camera map to see where they're watching, and use our take-action resources to push your own council toward the same kind of scrutiny Neenah just showed.