Sheboygan considers ending contract with Flock

What a big story tonight. More flock fallout in Wisconsin. Tonight we are learning another city has shut down its license plate. Reader cameras on Friday. Multiple agencies announced they are doing the same, and this all comes as she Morgan looks to fully pull the plug on its flock contract this week. Alright, Dante Matthews here in studio with what's next for the city. Yes, Sam. So if you go to Sheboygan right now, you won't physically see the cameras. That's because the city has covered them up. Now the next step is to actually make it official with the city. Blanketed and blocked with trash bags. The city of Sheboygan is taking the next steps to scrap flock cameras. It makes me feel good. The city signed a deal with flock safety at the end of 2023, but a letter to Sheboygan Public Works in March showed the license plate reading cameras did much more than just that. The company offered to sell the city years worth of traffic, volume, vehicle types, and speed data. The cameras were collecting. We don't know the bigger picture of what they're using to stop traffic data for Lisa Salgado lives in Sheboygan and says she's on board with ditching the cams. There are risks with these cameras about our data who's storing it. She says she's happy. The city's Common Council will vote Tuesday on whether to terminate the city's agreement with block. Alderman Michael Close said in a statement. He's raised concerns about data security and is encouraged after further review. That quote the city administrator and police chief have reached an assessment consistent with those concerns and are recommending that the contract be ended. On Friday, a wave of law enforcement agencies announced plans to drop block cameras, citing the letter Sheboygan received as proof they aren't serving the public as intended. As for Salgado, she says, if Sheboygan does ditch the cameras, she hopes the city doesn't go with another company that could have similar problems. We still don't have that guarantee that our data isn't going to be used for something else, or that office local officers won't be misusing that data as well. The Sheboygan Common Council meeting will be Tuesday night at 6 o'clock. Right now it's unclear just how much the city will have to pay, if at all, to actually end its contract. We did reach out to flock and as of right now have not heard back. Sam Durante, thanks so much. Meanwhile, Milwaukee County supervisor wants the Sheriff's Office to follow Sheboygan's lead and cut ties with flock. But Justin Belinsky says he wants Sheriff Danita Ball to make that decision herself. The issue here is that no matter what the intentions are of the sheriff, the sheriff it's the company behind the technology is just not a trustworthy actor. And anytime you have, you know, a product that's offered at a fairly cheap price, right? I mean, the contract the county has with flock is less than $200,000 a year. Anytime you get a contract like that, you know that you're kind of the product. Earlier this week, County Executive David Crowley ordered the Sheriff's Office to limit its use of flock to prevent, quote, unchecked surveillance. So the Sheriff's Office debuted a new dashboard that tells the county and the public how many times. They've searched in the last 30 days and what crimes those searches are associated with.