Liam Beran
A Flock camera outside Wisconsin Police Department's Monroe Street headquarters.
The University of Wisconsin Police Department operates several Flock cameras, including this one outside of its Monroe Street headquarters.
Dane County operates about 25 Flock cameras, which detect and automatically register automobile license plates in a nationwide database.
Captain Heidi Gardner of the Dane County Sheriff’s Office says that the cameras, located around busy roadways, have helped solve investigations, including homicides. The office began using the cameras as part of a pilot project in 2022.
The county also has agreements with law enforcement agencies in Wisconsin and other states to share surveillance footage upon request.
“This regional cooperation significantly enhances our ability to locate missing persons, AMBER alerts, and criminal activity quickly,” says Gardner. “These are not blanket data-sharing agreements — they’re reciprocal arrangements with specific agencies based on geographic proximity and investigative needs.”
The cameras, however, have proven controversial with local residents and privacy advocates, and concerns have grown about their potential use in immigration enforcement operations.
Dorothea Salo, a cybersecurity expert and UW-Madison professor, says Dane County’s data sharing agreements add another layer of concern.
“They can’t promise that [data won’t be used for immigration enforcement] if they’re sharing the data with anyone, unless there’s a contract with every single organization they’re sharing with,” says Salo. “You can’t stop that third party doing whatever the heck they want, including sharing with ICE.”
A departmental policy prohibits officers from using Flock data for immigration enforcement, but does not address how third-party agencies may share data received through the system. According to its “transparency portal webpage,” the office has fulfilled requests for data from more than 50 law enforcement agencies in Wisconsin and with agencies in seven other states: Illinois (29 agencies), Iowa (1), Michigan (2), Missouri (3), Tennessee (3), New York (1), and Indiana (1).
There are safeguards, Gardner says: requests must be manually approved by a sheriff’s office employee in charge of the camera system and must be tied to a “legitimate law enforcement purpose” or “active criminal investigation.”
Founded in 2017, Flock says its cameras — which produce footage that is accessible through a nationwide database and send real-time alerts to law enforcement agencies — help police stay apprised of threats and help them respond quickly.
The company owns and installs the cameras, and police agencies pay a rental fee in return. At least 221 agencies in Wisconsin have Flock cameras, the Wisconsin Examiner found in August 2025.
“Search” audits, which show what officers are searching the Flock system for, are posted publicly on the Dane County sheriff’s transparency portal. According to an Isthmus analysis, officers made 250 Flock network searches from Jan. 25 to Feb. 22. Of those, 58% were “attempt to locate” searches for suspects, witnesses or other persons of interest done on behalf of the sheriff’s office; 22.4% were “attempt to locate” searches done on behalf of another agency; 5.6% for stolen automobiles; 4.4% for thefts; 2.8% for hit-and-runs; 2.8% for burglaries; 1.6% were for wanted suspects; 0.8% were for missing persons; and 0.4% were for suicidal persons.
Source: Isthmus analysis based on Dane County Sheriff’s Office data
A graph of Flock network searches by Dane County sheriffs.
The “network audit,” which shows requests for Dane County Sheriff’s Office Flock data coming from outside agencies, is not publicly available. A records request from Isthmus for this data is still pending.
Critics allege that the cameras are used by ICE to assist in deportations. An investigation from 404 Media found that local and state law enforcement agencies have shared Flock data with ICE at the request of the agency or as an “informal” favor. Pinged cameras included those in Illinois, even though the state has banned the use of such cameras for immigration enforcement.
Officer abuse is another frequent concern. According to The Post Crescent: Menasha police officer Cristian Morales was put on administrative leave and charged with misconduct in public office after using Flock cameras to track down an ex-girlfriend’s car. According to a criminal complaint, Morales made the request on his mobile phone from home while off-duty. The request pinged up to 92,000 cameras, suggesting a statewide or nationwide search.
Verona voted not to renew its contract with Flock in November 2025 due to resident concerns about “who might be spying on us,” says Mayor Luke Diaz. Diaz doesn’t think it would be hard for ICE to get its hands on Flock footage: “If they knew someone in local law enforcement who had a contract, they could just look it up in the system.”
He says city staff looked through the cameras’ network audit and found “unidentified agencies,” as well as ICE, had requested data from the city.
“[ICE] would have access to it, regardless of what Flock says,” says Diaz. The company said in a January 2026 statement that ICE cannot directly access Flock data “unless the agencies that control their data expressly and deliberately allow it.”
Flock did not respond to a request for comment.
There are about 80 Flock cameras spread across multiple jurisdictions in Dane County, according to the crowdsourced website Deflock Dane, which relies on sightings, public records requests, and analyses of network traffic.
The city of Madison does not operate any Flock cameras; under the city’s “surveillance devices” ordinance, any proposed contract would have to be approved by both the mayor and city council. Both the University of Wisconsin Police Department and Wisconsin State Capitol Police, which have primary jurisdiction on campus and near the Capitol, respectively, have contracts with Flock. The Capitol Police’s four cameras are located around the Capitol Square.
Marc Lovicott, spokesperson for UW police, declined to share the locations of the department’s eight cameras. He says the department automatically shares Flock data with other Wisconsin law enforcement agencies, but will only share data with other state and federal agencies upon request and on a “case-by-case basis.”
Says Lovicott: “We decided to limit access to only Wisconsin agencies so we could better control who could access the data and avoid a ‘free-for-all.’”
