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On July 9, 2026, the ACLU of Wisconsin responded to news that a Milwaukee Police Department Internal Affairs detective has been criminally charged with misusing Flock, the department's automated license plate reader (ALPR) system. According to the ACLU's statement, the detective is accused of using the camera network to illegally track the locations of two people, running about 20 searches on them over the course of a year.

Two officers, one department, the same cameras

What makes the case remarkable is where the detective worked. Internal Affairs is the unit that investigates misconduct by other officers, and this detective had been involved in the case against former officer Josue Ayala - the Milwaukee officer charged in February 2026 with using the same Flock system to look up a woman he had dated more than 120 times, and her ex-partner 55 times, according to reporting by the Wisconsin Examiner. That makes two criminal cases over Flock misuse at one department within months.

Amanda Merkwae, the ACLU of Wisconsin's Policy and Advocacy Director, called it outrageous that an Internal Affairs detective has now been charged with using the very same system to illegally surveil two people, and said that cases of law enforcement misusing Flock have become a troubling and persistent pattern. The organization also points out that the police department entered into no-bid contracts with Flock that bypassed approval by the city's Common Council.

What Flock's license plate readers actually record

An automated license plate reader is a camera that photographs every plate that passes it, converts the image into text, and stores the plate with a timestamp and location in a searchable database. One reading is banal. Thousands of readings over months, searchable in seconds, add up to a map of a person's movements: where they live, work, worship and protest, and who they visit.

• A Milwaukee Internal Affairs detective is charged with using Flock to illegally track two people, about 20 searches over a year (ACLU of Wisconsin, July 9, 2026)
• It is the second Flock misuse case at the department in months: former officer Josue Ayala was charged in February after nearly 200 lookups of a woman he had dated and her ex
• ALPR cameras log every passing plate with a time and location in a searchable database
• At least 221 Wisconsin law enforcement agencies use Flock (Wisconsin Examiner)
• The ACLU demands a CCOPS ordinance, enforceable audit protocols and independent oversight
• There is no opt-out on the road - transparency and local rules are the real lever

Flock Safety, the company behind Milwaukee's cameras, has built one of the largest ALPR networks in the United States, and agencies can share access with one another. In Wisconsin alone, at least 221 law enforcement agencies use Flock, according to the Wisconsin Examiner. The reach goes beyond local policing: the ACLU's statement also cites reporting that federal immigration authorities have run searches through local Flock systems across the country.

Misuse is easy because a search is cheap. An officer types a plate and a reason into a box, and unless someone actually audits those reasons, the system runs on trust. Both Milwaukee cases surfaced because somebody eventually checked. Reporting across Wisconsin shows the problem is not confined to one city: as Flock has spread, several communities in the state have been confronting misuse of the system by police.

Why this matters even if you are not a suspect

The people tracked by ALPR are overwhelmingly not suspects. If you drive, your plate is being logged, and there is no opt-out: no account to delete, no setting to change. What limits exist - how long data is kept, who can search it, whether searches are audited - are set by each city and department, and in many places they are thin. That is what turns a crime-fighting tool into an infrastructure that can be pointed at an ex, a journalist, or anyone else.

The ACLU of Wisconsin's demand is not to unplug the cameras but to put them under democratic control: a Community Control Over Police Surveillance (CCOPS) ordinance, a codified framework for how surveillance technology is bought and used, strong and enforceable audit protocols, and independent oversight. Members of Milwaukee's Common Council have already sent reform proposals to the city's Fire and Police Commission, so the raw material for those rules exists.

What you can do about ALPR surveillance

If this worries you, the leverage is local. Ask whether your city or county uses ALPR - the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Atlas of Surveillance is a good starting point - and request the written policy: retention period, sharing with other agencies, audit rules. Some cities that use Flock operate public transparency portals that show how the system is searched. A public records request, or a question at a council meeting, is often all it takes to get answers.

On the road there is no personal setting that stops a plate reader, and we will not pretend otherwise. But the same logic - scattered traces assembled into a profile - applies to your life online, and there you do have controls. Shrinking your digital footprint and blocking trackers reduces what any database, public or private, can assemble about you. Our guides on how to stop websites tracking you and on what a digital footprint is cover the practical steps.