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Milwaukee Flock camera use questions; MPD updates policy
Flock cameras can be found in communities across the country. There are more than 30 in the City of Milwaukee alone. Now, questions are being raised about who is looking at the data.
MILWAUKEE - Flock cameras can be found in communities across the country. There are more than 30 in the City of Milwaukee alone. Now, questions are being raised about who is looking at the data.
Proper use of Flock cameras
What we know:
The Milwaukee Police Department says Flock cameras helped in solving hundreds of crimes. But prosecutors say a police officer recently used it in a crime.
"I think the assumption was the audit function that we had in place was being utilized, and we didn’t really understand the gaps in that audit system until something slipped through the cracks," said Heather Hough, Milwaukee Police Department Chief of Staff.
Prosecutors allege Josue Ayala used Flock cameras to track a romantic partner and that partner's ex. They say in the span of a month, the officer searched the pair 179 times. In February, prosecutors charged Ayala with attempted misconduct in public office.
Josue Ayala
MPD reacts
What they're saying:
"As the department where we have a couple thousand men and women both sworn and unsworn who work with this particular technology, I can never guarantee that someone will abuse or misuse it. It is definitely something that we do not accept," said Milwaukeee Police Chief Jeffrey Norman.
Police policy requires officers document the reason for the search. Prosecutors say Ayala said he listed his as "investigation." Prosecutors say MPD did not spot these searches. But instead, one of the victims discovered it by searching the website, haveibeenflocked.com.
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A Milwaukee Common Council committee questioned MPD.
Common Council weighs in
What they're saying:
"Body cameras, ALPRS, Zoom cameras, all of that is generating data, and the concern is, one concern is, you don’t want to inadvertently create an apparatus for a surveillance state and wait to see if someone turns it on," said Milwaukee Alderman Scott Spiker.
"It must be independently audited. We cannot police ourselves. We cannot police the police, that’s why we have an independent Fire and Police Commission," said Milwaukee Alderperson Marina Demitrijevic.
Catching future issues
What's next:
Police department officials said they strengthened the audit process to catch future problems.
"Our audit program we devised can sort data in a uniform way and find the outliers and find people, who aren’t imputing data correctly. very quickly. If you’re not putting it in in the uniform way, it will throw the data off, you will become an outlier and you will be audited in a deep-dive audit to see exactly what is this purpose," said James Lewis, MPD Risk Manager. "We’re looking for the law enforcement purpose for every single time that somebody accesses and uses flock to query a plate. It needs to associate to an active investigation, and it needs to have an investigative reason that a supervisor can readily identify through records."
MPD officials said they revoked access for all users. Officers then had to get approval from their captain to regain access, and then agree to the rules and protocols.
"With great power that the technology provides, it brings great responsibility," Norman said.
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The Milwaukee Fire and Police Commission said in 2026, it will audit Flock usage. That means randomly sampling Flock searches to make sure they were compliant.
Milwaukee police said the feds do not have access to the data, but that MPD owns it, and decides with whom to share. They share with police in Wisconsin and Chicago.
The Source: Information in this post was provided by the Milwaukee Police Department.