Sheboygan could cancel Flock Safety contract after police raise concerns

Our Take

When the cops themselves start asking hard questions about a surveillance contract, that's worth paying attention to. TMJ4 News reports that Sheboygan, Wisconsin has physically covered all 15 of its Flock Safety cameras after police concerns pushed the city toward possibly scrapping the deal entirely. That's a rare and telling moment — this isn't activists or privacy lawyers sounding the alarm, it's people inside the department who apparently aren't comfortable with how this tech is being used or sold.

Flock loves to pitch these systems as a quiet, low-friction crime-fighting tool for small and mid-size cities. But "quiet" is doing a lot of work there — it's quiet because most residents never get a real say before dozens of cameras start logging every car that passes. When the people enforcing the law start hedging, it's a signal that the promises made during the sales pitch don't always match the reality of running a mass license-plate database.

Sheboygan is a case study other towns should watch closely before they sign, not after. If your city has Flock cameras already installed, check our camera map to see where, and head to our take-action page if you want to push your local council to ask the same hard questions Sheboygan is asking now. Credit to TMJ4 News for breaking this one.