Wisconsin agencies drop Flock over aggregated-data product as Marathon County and Wausau keep cameras

First reported: September 24, 2026 · 1 source

Wausau Pilot & Review reviewed Flock Safety contracts and found that while no public evidence shows the company selling identifiable license plate reads, its agreements grant Flock broad rights to use aggregated, de-identified data for other products — including a paid Traffic Analytics service whose statistics the company says have historically been kept for five years. Sheboygan's council voted Sept. 8 to terminate after a Flock representative allegedly offered to sell the city data derived from its own 15 cameras, and Racine County's sheriff ordered cameras removed Sept. 4 after Flock confirmed the five-year aggregated retention. Oneida County will remove six cameras by Oct. 2, and Dane County, Fitchburg, Monona, Oshkosh, Appleton, Verona, Stoughton, De Pere, Stevens Point, Waukesha, Oconomowoc, the city of Racine and UW-Milwaukee have also ended, suspended or declined programs. Marathon County Sheriff Chad Billeb says he intends to keep the county's 10 cameras, and Wausau, with 20, has not announced a decision.

Why this matters

The Wisconsin departures turn on contract language about aggregated data that appears in Flock agreements nationwide, meaning other communities may face the same unresolved question of what a vendor may do with records generated by publicly funded cameras. No court or regulator has publicly ruled on whether building and marketing a product from aggregated data violates the contracts' no-sale clause.

Key facts

Marathon County's 2022 contract grants Flock a perpetual, worldwide license to use agency data as part of aggregated data, while also stating Flock shall not sell agency or aggregated data.
In the 30 days ending Sept. 1, Marathon County's 10 cameras logged 518,853 vehicle sightings and Wausau's 20 logged 233,355, per agency transparency portals.
Flock said in August that standard retention of plate reads would drop from 30 days to seven; the company says Traffic Analytics statistics have historically been kept five years.
Fond du Lac and Winnebago county sheriff's offices suspended use Sept. 4 after search logs, including records tied to active investigations, were released through out-of-state open records requests.
LAPD let its Flock contract lapse in July following an inspector general audit reported by Fortune; Kenosha is moving to competitor Axon in a process the city says started in January.

Sources

This summary was written from the published reporting below and links to it; BlockFlockNow does not reproduce article text.

Is Flock selling your data? What the contracts say, why Wisconsin agencies are leaving, and where Marathon County and Wausau stand (Wausau Pilot & Review, September 24, 2026)

More from Wisconsin

Everything we have documented in Wisconsin, or search every Wisconsin article in the archive.

About this record

BlockFlockNow documents reported incidents involving Flock Safety cameras and automated license plate readers: council votes, contract decisions, misuse by authorized users, lawsuits, audits, and community response. Every record is reviewed by a person before publication. New to the topic? Start with What is Flock?, find meetings near you, or learn how to request your town's camera records.

Updated September 28, 2026. Corrections: blockflock@bytebunny.io. See all documented incidents or search the full article archive.