Some Manitowoc residents feel the city needs to do even more after the deactivation of Flock Safety cameras.
Two residents spoke during Monday’s common council meeting, explaining their concern with Automated License Plate Reading cameras, or ALPRs, in both the Clipper City and throughout the state.
Mayor Justin Nickels explained in the city’s deactivation announcement that the current contract with Flock ends in early 2027.
Over the next few months, as part of the budget process, the city will “determine whether to continue, modify, or discontinue that contract and will evaluate alternatives.”
Resident Michael Pearson asked the council not only to end the contract early, but also not to replace Flock with another type of ALPR.
Pearson said he felt the city’s statement on deactivating the Flock cameras left residents with a difficult impression of what is actually happening.
“The public hears we are deactivating Flock cameras, but the contract remains, the relationship remains, and the cameras remain,” he stated. “Let me ask you, is this what we consider being straightforward with the citizens of Manitowoc?”
Pearson also stated that if the city were to build a “permanent surveillance infrastructure” in the city, the city needs to “demonstrate that the public safety benefits justify the civil liberties residents would be giving up.”
He told the council, “These mass surveillance companies are out there making some pretty extraordinary claims, and I don’t think that move fast and break things is an acceptable policy for our constitutional rights.”
Before he spoke, another resident named Sherry told the council she had serious reservations about ALPRs, how they were installed, and the lack of transparency about their future.
She also doesn’t want to see the burden the cameras could cause on innocent people.
“We’re concerned that we will be one of the people affected by an incorrectly read plate,” she stated. “We’re concerned that someone will abuse this power. This national access to personal data with no oversight. So in the opinion of at least one resident, I feel the ALPRs are morally wrong, they’re illegally questionable, and they are 100% un-American.”
In Manitowoc’s Flock camera deactivation announcement, officials say they’ve not experienced any issues regarding Flock Safety or its technology, but “recent events and allegations locally and nationwide have raised legitimate questions about trust—specifically concerning how the company manages data, how that data could be accessed, and the potential for misuse.”
Mayor Justin Nickels and Police Chief John Musial also added that the city “operated the system responsibly and solely as an investigative tool to address criminal activity, not general surveillance, tracking routine vehicle movement, monitoring traffic patterns, or any non-law enforcement purpose.”
Nickels also reminds people that the deactivation affects only city-owned cameras, meaning cameras owned by individuals and private companies will still be used.
