City of Manitowoc announces deactivation of city‑owned Flock cameras
The short version: Manitowoc, Wisconsin is shutting down its city-owned Flock ALPR cameras, following other Wisconsin counties that have hit pause on the technology, per WBAY TV-2.
Our Take
Add Manitowoc to the growing list of Wisconsin communities hitting the brakes on Flock Safety's license plate readers. WBAY TV-2 reports the city is deactivating its camera network, joining other counties in the state that have suspended these systems. We don't yet know the full reasoning behind the city's decision, but the pattern across Wisconsin is becoming hard to ignore: local officials who signed up for "just catching car thieves" are now quietly unplugging the hardware.
That pattern matters. These cameras don't just snap a photo of a license plate — they build a searchable, retained database of where every car in town has been, accessible to police and, in some cases, shared across jurisdictional lines with little public oversight. When a city reverses course, it's usually because someone finally asked the hard questions about who's watching that data, how long it's kept, and who it gets shared with. Those are the same questions every resident should be asking before their own town signs a Flock contract.
If you want to see whether ALPR cameras are already watching your neighborhood, check our camera map, and if you'd rather push your city toward deactivation instead of expansion, our take-action page has the tools to get started. Credit to WBAY TV-2 in Green Bay for keeping local residents informed on this story.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of WBAY TV-2 | Green Bay, WI, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.