Milwaukee has cut most officer access to its Flock license plate reader network after two former police department members were criminally charged with misusing the system.
Mayor Cavalier Johnson announced the stricter rules this week after the Common Council pushed for reform. Under the new policy, only supervisors can query the camera network, and use is limited to Part I crimes such as homicide, motor vehicle theft and human trafficking, plus critical missing persons cases, drug trafficking organization investigations and abductions.
The charges stem from alleged abuse of the plate reader database by two former officers. A third officer is under internal investigation over a single query flagged as outlying use, a department spokesperson said.
Johnson framed the move as a balance. The cameras have located critical missing persons and helped apprehend violent criminals, he said, but the technology "has also been misused in several notable instances, both locally and nationally, compromising the rights of individuals."
The tightening arrives as the backlash over police plate reader access spreads. Several Wisconsin communities have already dropped Flock contracts, and cities elsewhere have removed or restricted the cameras over privacy concerns and questions about how plate data flows to other agencies. Milwaukee keeps the network but shrinks the circle that can touch it, betting that tighter access answers what the removals could not.
