Flock Cameras in Wisconsin: Price County’s 10-Device Surveillance Network

By /

Price County, Wisconsin deployed 10 Flock automated license plate readers across its roadways at a cost of $14,600 upfront plus $12,000 per year in ongoing fees — all with zero public input. No hearing. No budget line item. No vote. The deployment is part of a broader wave of Flock camera installations across Wisconsin, where some communities have embraced the technology while others have terminated contracts over privacy concerns.

Municipal Status and Controversy in Wisconsin

Continued Use

  • Price County: 10 Flock cameras deployed at a cost of $14,600 upfront plus $12,000 per year, approved through a debt reallocation agenda item titled “Reallocation of 2024 Debt Proceeds” — no mention of Flock, cameras, or surveillance in the agenda title. Zero public input. The Phillips city announcement on December 5, 2023, and the county Executive Committee approval on August 15, 2024, are the only two public records of the cameras.
  • Milwaukee: Flock cameras remain in use, though the surveillance debate has intensified after Act 12, a state law that stripped the Milwaukee Fire and Police Commission of key oversight powers.
  • Green Bay: Continues using Flock ALPR technology as part of its law enforcement toolkit.

Contract Terminations

  • Dane County: The County Board voted to end its Flock contract in April 2026, with the contract expiring May 31. When Flock failed to remove the cameras for nearly a week, sheriff’s deputies put black garbage bags over all 26 cameras to protect community privacy. Sheriff Kalvin Barrett said, “We listened to the community. We listened to our board. We also want to make sure that our community feels safe and that we are continuing to build trust.” The county is now evaluating approximately 16 other ALPR providers.
  • Oshkosh: Ended its Flock camera contract amid privacy concerns.
  • Appleton: Discontinued its Flock surveillance program.
  • Verona: The mayor physically put black garbage bags over Flock cameras after the city ended its contract but Flock refused to remove them.
  • Sturgeon Bay: Terminated its Flock camera agreement.

Wisconsin Public Radio (WPR) has reported extensively on Wisconsin communities ending Flock contracts, and the ACLU of Wisconsin has been actively campaigning against Flock surveillance, pushing for CCOPS (Community Control Over Police Surveillance) ordinances that would require public approval before deploying surveillance technology.

Privacy Concerns

Price County has form for public debate on police technology — when it’s about monitoring police. The 2021 body camera purchase was transparent because it had to be. Body cameras affect police officers. They create accountability for people with power.

License plate readers affect everyone else. They monitor residents, visitors, and anyone driving through the county. And they received zero public scrutiny.

This isn’t an accident. It’s how Flock Safety’s business model works. The company markets directly to law enforcement, has “federal funding eligibility” as a selling point, and provides template policies that departments can adopt without public input. In Price County, that playbook worked exactly as designed.

Your Car, Scanned 24/7

Flock Safety’s ALPR cameras scan every license plate that passes — not just stolen vehicles or wanted suspects. License plate reader data consistently shows that 95–99% of scanned plates do not match any hot list or wanted vehicle, according to law enforcement audits and the ACLU. The cameras log every passing car, not just suspects. Every trip to the grocery store, every commute to work, every visit to a doctor’s appointment — all logged, timestamped, and stored.

That data doesn’t stay in Price County. Flock’s “Data Platform” shares information across a national network. Federal agencies including the FBI and ICE have obtained Flock data indirectly through local law enforcement partners, effectively bypassing warrant requirements, according to public records requests and reporting by the ACLU of Wisconsin and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). Your trips around Phillips, Prentice, Park Falls, and Catawba become data points in a federal surveillance system — and you never consented to any of it.

The Hauschild One-Sentence Notification

That sentence — buried on page 4 of a Phillips Committee of the Whole meeting from December 5, 2023 — is the only public record that surveillance cameras were coming to Price County. Chief Michael Hauschild announced it as a police department update: “The flock cameras are set to be installed at the end of the month.” The council didn’t discuss it. Nobody voted. Nobody asked about data retention, civil liberties, or who would have access to the data.

The Body Camera Double Standard

Contrast this with the 2021 body camera purchase. That $45,000 procurement was discussed, debated, and approved in public sessions. The difference? Body cameras monitor police officers. License plate readers monitor everyone else.

How to Find Cameras in Your Area

Want to know if Flock cameras are watching your roads? Several tools can help you identify surveillance cameras in your community:

  • DeFlock.org — A community-powered database that maps Flock Safety ALPR camera locations nationwide. Search by city, county, or ZIP code to see reported camera installations.
  • Our Price County Flock Camera Map — Our interactive map showing the 10 known Flock camera locations in Price County, Wisconsin, with cost breakdown and installation dates.
  • HaveIBeenFlocked.com — Check whether your location has been tracked by Flock cameras by searching your area or route.
  • Open Records Requests: File a public records request with your local sheriff’s office or police department asking for any contracts, purchase orders, or correspondence related to Flock Safety or ALPR technology. In Wisconsin, public records law (Section 19.31) gives you the right to request government documents, with exemptions for active investigations.

If you discover Flock cameras in your area that were installed without public input, contact your local elected officials and ask whether a CCOPS ordinance could prevent future deployments without community consent.

The Hidden County Vote: August 15, 2024

A comprehensive search of the Price County agenda center covering 2017 through 2026 — approximately 80-plus PDF documents across every county committee — found exactly one mention of Flock cameras in the entire county record. One, in eight years of documents.

On August 15, 2024, the Price County Executive Committee voted to approve the purchase of four Flock cameras for the Sheriff’s Office. The cost was $14,600 for the cameras and $12,000 per year in ongoing fees. The funding came from “unused 2024 debt proceeds.”

But here is the problem: the agenda item was titled “Reallocation of 2024 Debt Proceeds.” No mention of Flock. No mention of cameras. No mention of surveillance. No mention of the Sheriff’s Office. The word “Flock” appears only in the meeting minutes — the document created after the vote.

A resident monitoring the county agenda to see what their government was doing on August 15, 2024, would have seen “Reallocation of 2024 Debt Proceeds” and moved on. They would not have known that surveillance cameras were being discussed. They would not have known they were paying for them.

Chief Deputy Robert Hawn — now a candidate for Sheriff — presented the Flock information to the committee. The motion was by Supervisor Larry Palecek, seconded by Supervisor Alan Barkstrom, and carried with no recorded dissent. The Executive Committee, a five-member body, approved the purchase unilaterally. No full County Board vote was found.

The funding source is also different from what was previously inferred. The cameras were not paid for with ARPA funds. They were paid for with unused 2024 debt proceeds — money the county had already borrowed but not yet spent. This is local debt, not federal grants. Taxpayers are on the hook for the repayment either way, but the mechanism is entirely different, and it means the ARPA spending deadline may not apply to the Flock contract in the way this article previously suggested.

The $12,000 annual fee approved at that August 2024 meeting will be absorbed into the Sheriff’s Office annual budget as an ongoing operational expense. In future budget cycles, the cost will appear as a line item within the sheriff’s overall budget, not as a standalone item for public discussion. Unless a supervisor specifically pulls the line during budget deliberations, there will be no separate public vote on continuing the Flock contract.

How Flock Safety Gets In Without Asking

Flock Safety sells automated license plate readers using a SaaS (Software as a Service) model, roughly $2,500 per camera per year. This pricing structure is deliberate. It means the cameras aren’t a capital expenditure requiring a public vote. They’re an operational expense. A line item in an existing budget. Easy to approve without anyone outside the department knowing.

A forensic review of municipal records from January 2022 through November 2023 found zero mentions of “Flock” or “ALPR” in any public document. Zero. The cameras appeared fully formed in December 2023 with no paper trail leading up to them.

For more on SignalTrace device-tracking surveillance, see our full investigation.

The ARPA Connection

For a deeper dive into the funding trail, see our investigation into whether ARPA money paid for these cameras.

The timing is not coincidental. Flock cameras were announced in December 2023 — the same month that marked the end of the federal ARPA (American Rescue Plan Act) spending window. Price County received approximately $1.46 million in ARPA funds, with $928,584 spent in 2023 alone. The county’s ARPA revenue drops to zero in the 2024 budget.

Using federal pandemic relief funds to purchase surveillance technology is a pattern that has been documented in municipalities across the country. The federal money bypasses local budget scrutiny, and the SaaS subscription model ensures the ongoing costs blend into existing operational budgets without attracting attention.

Price County’s 2024 budget includes a $306,674 “Contingent Fund” with zero prior history. In the three previous years, that line item didn’t exist. Where did that money come from, and what is it for? We’ve asked. We’re waiting for an answer.

Other Communities Are Pushing Back

Price County isn’t alone in facing this issue, but other communities have responded differently. The ACLU of Wisconsin has pushed for CCOPS (Community Control Over Police Surveillance) ordinances in Milwaukee and statewide, which would require public approval before deploying surveillance technology, regardless of funding source.

In Milwaukee, the surveillance debate has taken on new urgency after Act 12, a state law that stripped the Milwaukee Fire and Police Commission of key oversight powers in exchange for allowing the city to adopt a sales tax. Community advocates argue that removing an independent oversight body at the same time surveillance technology is expanding is not a coincidence — it weakens the very accountability structures meant to protect residents. See our full coverage of Flock cameras in Wisconsin.

CCOPS ordinances exist in cities across the country. They require transparency before surveillance, not after. They give residents a voice in whether their movements are tracked. Right now, Price County has no such policy.

The Jail They Can’t Staff, The Cameras They Did Buy

While money went to surveillance cameras with no public discussion, Price County’s jail — described as the oldest and smallest in the region — buckles under overcrowding. The county went eight months without a District Attorney after an unexpected resignation, creating a backlog of uncharged cases. Surveillance cameras generate “actionable leads” for a legal system that couldn’t process the cases it already had.

The county also eliminated its $5,000 annual contribution to Friends of the Falls in the same budget where a $306,674 contingency fund appeared for the first time. A community organization got defunded while surveillance infrastructure got funded — and nobody was told about it.

The Budget Confirms the Secrecy

We searched both the 2023 and 2024 Price County budget documents for the words “camera,” “Flock,” “ALPR,” “surveillance,” and “license plate.” Zero results. Not a single line item. Not even a euphemism.

The Sheriff’s 2024 budget includes a $37,645 Capital Outlay line for “Equipment” and a $129,400 Contract/Professional Services line. Neither specifies what the equipment is or who the contractor is. Flock Safety’s SaaS subscription could sit in either line without public scrutiny.

Compare that to the 2021 body camera procurement, which was publicly discussed and approved. That $45,000 purchase went through the proper channels — budget hearings, committee review, public vote. The Flock cameras? They appeared on poles in December 2023 with no budget trail at all.

This is the secrecy gap in one sentence: body cameras that watch police got a public vote. Cameras that watch everyone else got nothing.

Sheriff Candidate Walt Madsen: “I’m Going to Rip Them Down”

Walt Madsen, one of two Republican candidates for Price County Sheriff facing an August 11 primary, recorded a statement on May 26, 2026 responding to Price County Fun’s coverage of the Flock camera deployment. His full transcribed remarks follow:

“I want to work hard to physically keep this county safe. But I’m not going to spy on American citizens. If we’re not spying on illegal immigrants, if we’re not spying on Islamic terrorists all over our country — we’re spying on our own people. I don’t like that.”

“What I’m going to do is rip them down when I become sheriff. So I don’t know if you like that, but that’s what I’m going to do.”

“If businesses want to put up their own cameras to monitor outside their shops — which they should — that would be a great help. That’s how you keep the community safe. We work together. But only that business has that footage. Not everybody else. I would recommend to every business in our county to get cameras watching our streets, so nobody ever gets away when they do something. And then the police go get a warrant and they say, ‘Hey, we need the footage from your cameras.’ Bam. We got it. We’re not spying on our people anymore.”

Madsen, who is running to replace Sheriff Brian Schmidt in the Republican primary alongside Robert Hawn, framed the issue as a clear contrast between his approach and the current administration’s. His proposed alternative, private business cameras available to law enforcement with a warrant, echoes the community-based model that privacy advocates have suggested as a replacement for automated surveillance networks.

“I’m about making the masses happy,” Madsen said. “If the people want to keep them for the safety aspect, I guess that’s what we’ll do. But I don’t believe we should keep them, to be totally honest with you.”

Neither the sheriff’s office nor candidate Robert Hawn have responded to requests for comment on the Flock camera deployment. This article will be updated if they do.

What Happens Next

We’ve filed public records requests. The responses are due by June 9. What’s in them, and what’s been redacted, will tell us how deep this goes.

The Flock camera question will also land in voters’ laps on August 11, when the Republican primary for sheriff pits Madsen’s “rip them down” position against whatever his opponents propose. With Brian Schmidt not seeking re-election, the winner of the primary will face no Democratic challenger in November, meaning the primary winner becomes sheriff. The cameras’ fate may be decided not by a county board vote, but by a ballot box.

We’re tracking three threads: where the money came from, who has access to the data, and why no one in a position of authority thought residents deserved to know. Each thread has led somewhere so far. Each one has raised more questions than it answered.

In the meantime, every Price County resident should be asking: who decided to put cameras on our roads, who has access to the data, and why were we never told?

Update: Dane County Covers Flock Cameras After Contract Expires

On June 5, 2026, Dane County sheriff’s deputies put bags over all 26 Flock cameras across the county after the company failed to remove the cameras for nearly a week following the end of the county’s contract. The Dane County Board voted to end the contract with Flock Safety in April, with the contract officially expiring May 31. By June 5, Flock had still not retrieved its cameras, so the sheriff’s office physically covered them to protect community privacy.

Dane County Sheriff Kalvin Barrett said the cameras are technically Flock’s property, so deputies could not legally remove them. Since several days had passed after the contract ended and the county did not know whether Flock was still collecting data, covering the cameras became the only option. “We listened to the community. We listened to our board. We also want to make sure that our community feels safe and that we are continuing to build trust,” Barrett told WMTV.

The county is now evaluating approximately 16 other ALPR providers to replace Flock. Barrett credited the cameras with helping reduce crime in rural Dane County between 2024 and 2025 and hopes to find a replacement that addresses both public safety needs and community privacy concerns.

The situation in Dane County shows a vulnerability that exists for every jurisdiction using Flock cameras: when the contract ends, the hardware stays behind and data collection may continue. Price County residents concerned about Flock’s post-contract practices may want to ask the county what provisions exist in its current agreement. WPR reported on this growing trend of Wisconsin communities ending Flock contracts.

Wisconsin Law on Government Surveillance Cameras

Wisconsin does not have a complete state law regulating government use of surveillance cameras in public spaces. However, several legal principles apply:

  • Wisconsin Constitution, Article I, Section 11: Protects against unreasonable searches and seizures, which courts have applied to government surveillance.
  • Wisconsin Statutes Section 968.27: Addresses interception of communications, which can extend to video with audio recording.
  • Public records law (Section 19.31): Government surveillance footage may be subject to open records requests, with exemptions for active investigations.

Source: Wisconsin Legislative Reference Bureau; American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: What type of surveillance cameras did Price County install?

A: Price County installed Flock Safety automated license plate reader (ALPR) cameras at key entry points to the county. Flock cameras capture license plates, vehicle makes and models, and timestamps. Unlike traditional security cameras, ALPR systems track vehicle movements across the county and store that data in a searchable database.

Q: Was there any public meeting or vote before the cameras were installed?

A: According to available public records, the County Board did not hold a public hearing or conduct a formal vote specifically on the Flock camera deployment. The purchase appears to have been approved through administrative channels without dedicated public discussion.

Q: How long is Flock camera data retained?

A: Flock Safety’s default data retention period is 30 days, though individual law enforcement agencies can set custom retention policies. Price County’s data retention policy for ALPR data has not been publicly disclosed. Recent events in Dane County show that Flock may continue collecting data even after a contract ends — the cameras were still operational nearly a week after Dane County’s contract expired on May 31, 2026.

Q: Who has access to the Flock camera data?

A: The Price County Sheriff’s Office controls access to the Flock system. Through Flock’s network, other law enforcement agencies can request access to Price County’s camera data, and Price County can access cameras in other jurisdictions, creating a de facto regional surveillance network.

Q: What do candidates for Price County Sheriff say about Flock cameras?

A: Candidate Walt Madsen stated on May 26, 2026 that he would remove the Flock cameras if elected sheriff, advocating instead for a system of private business-owned cameras accessible to law enforcement via warrant. Candidate Robert Hawn and incumbent Sheriff Brian Schmidt have not publicly commented on the cameras as of this writing. The Republican primary is August 11, 2026, with no Democratic challenger, the primary winner becomes sheriff.

Q: Can I opt out of having my vehicle tracked by Flock cameras?

A: No. Flock cameras capture every vehicle that passes through their field of view. There is no opt-out mechanism for public roadways. Flock does allow residents to register their vehicles in a “safeguard list” for specific purposes like protection from harassment, but this does not prevent data collection, it only flags the vehicle if queried.

Q: How can I find Flock cameras in my area?

A: You can search DeFlock.org for reported camera locations nationwide, check HaveIBeenFlocked.com, or view our Price County Flock Camera Map. You can also file a public records request with your local law enforcement agency asking for any Flock Safety contracts or ALPR-related correspondence.

—

Visual overview: See our Flock Camera Infographic — a visual breakdown of all 10 surveillance devices, costs, timeline, and Wisconsin context.

Sources

This article is part of an ongoing investigative series. See also: The Watchful Eyes: Flock Cameras Come to Price County Amid National Privacy Debate, our original coverage of Flock camera deployment in Price County.

This investigation is ongoing.

See also: our ATV trail guide for Price County, our guide to free camping in Wisconsin, what makes Price County communities special, our guide to Price County public records and Prentice Pines Golf Course Up for Sealed Bids: What the Sale Means for a 70-Year Community Asset

See also: our guide to every town in Price County

Related: coach burned

See also: our Price County Board 2026 roster and meeting tracker

Related: Flock cameras in Price County.

See also: our investigation into the Bug Tussel broadband deal

See also: our reporting on Price County’s surveillance cameras

Related Coverage

Scroll to Top