4 cases of Flock camera misuse in Racine County in 2 months

Our Take

Four documented misuse cases in sixty days isn't a fluke, it's a pattern. Credit to Ben Hanson for digging into Racine County's records and putting a number on what critics of Flock Safety's camera network have warned about since these things started going up on telephone poles across Wisconsin and everywhere else: the people with access to this data don't always use it the way the sales pitch promises.

This is the gap between the marketing and the reality. Flock tells city councils their network is for solving violent crime and finding stolen cars. But once a database of every vehicle's movements exists, it becomes a tool for whatever the person logged in wants it to be, whether that's an officer looking up an ex, a personal dispute, or something nobody will admit to until a records request forces it into daylight. Four cases in two months in one county is a sample size that should worry anyone in a jurisdiction that hasn't audited its own logs.

The real scandal with ALPR misuse is how rarely it gets caught at all. Most departments aren't combing through audit trails looking for abuse, they're relying on self-policing by the same agencies cashing the subscription checks. If you want to know whether your town is running this surveillance net, check our camera map, and if you want to push back on it, our take action page has the tools to start asking your local officials the hard questions.