Neenah, Menasha, Waupaca County move to cut ties with Flock cameras

Our Take

Credit to WBAY TV-2 for catching a trend that deserves way more attention than it gets: local governments in Wisconsin actually pumping the brakes on Flock Safety after seeing how things played out in Sheboygan. When elected officials start asking "wait, who controls this data again?" and don't like the answer, that's the system working exactly as it should. Too many municipalities sign these contracts without ever asking who can query the network, how long footage sits in the cloud, or whether a neighboring agency three counties away can pull up a resident's movements with zero local sign-off.

This is the pattern we track at DeFlock USA constantly: a city council approves ALPRs for "stolen vehicles" or "Amber Alerts," and within a year the department discovers the cameras are being searched by outside agencies for reasons nobody on that council ever debated. Flock's whole pitch rests on a national network effect, which means your local privacy protections are only as strong as the weakest department plugged into that same grid. Sheboygan apparently found that out the hard way, and now Neenah, Menasha, and Waupaca County don't want to be next.

What's notable is these aren't activist-driven reversals, they're coming from officials reviewing the fine print and deciding the risk-to-benefit ratio doesn't add up. That's the conversation every community with a Flock contract should be having before renewal, not after a scandal. Check our camera map to see what's already deployed near you, and if your local government is weighing a Flock deal, our take-action page has the questions to bring to that meeting.