Wisconsin committee chair calls for hearing on Flock privacy concerns

(The Center Square) – A Wisconsin lawmaker who previously was a sponsor of a Flock camera grant bill is now calling for a ban on the unchecked use of the Flock automated license plate reader cameras.

State Rep. Calvin Callahan, R-Tomahawk, said he intends to call a hearing on surveillance cameras and their use in the state once a new legislative session begins in January in front of the Assembly Committee on Consumer Protection that he chairs.

“What was sold to us as a targeted public safety tool has rapidly evolved into something far more invasive and sometimes out of control, with reports of misuse, mistaken stops, and access to data that should concern every Wisconsinite,” Callahan said in a statement.

Flock has spent $102,000 in Wisconsin lobbying for the bill, which failed to pass.

Flock cameras are now coming under fire nationwide over privacy concerns with the technology and abuse of its database by law enforcement.

Several law enforcement agencies in Wisconsin have discontinued use of Flock cameras and removed them after learning that the company retains data from the cameras for five years and sells the data to third parties as a “Traffic Analytics” product.

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Racine County Sheriff Christopher Schooling recently said that the department had an understanding that there was a 30-day retention period for data from the cameras for public safety and crime solving purposes only.

“This is not what we agreed to, and it is not what the public was led to believe,” Schmaling said in a statement. “The Sheriff’s Office will not participate in a system that appears to use public safety as a justification for mass surveillance and the collection and monetization of information about innocent people.”

Callahan said that he is concerned with companies creating searchable records of citizens’ movements simply because they drove down a public street.

“I trust our law enforcement officers. What I don’t trust is a surveillance system without adequate checks and accountability. I refuse to accept the idea that sacrificing privacy is simply the price of living in a modern society,” Callahan said. “If these cameras cannot operate with warrants, judicial oversight, strict limits on data retention and real accountability, then they have no business operating in Wisconsin. Come January, the Consumer Protection Committee is going to put this surveillance system under the microscope.”

The Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, meanwhile, is working with a group preparing a Flock camera lawsuit in Waukesha County and elsewhere in the state while highlighting the privacy concerns about the use of the cameras without warrants.