Your plate is read. Here is who reads it.

Readers in 18 of 19 municipalities

Records and public documents put license plate readers in 18 of Milwaukee County's 19 municipalities, plus the Sheriff's Office and UW-Milwaukee police. Fifteen agencies' Flock networks held 264 cameras on August 21, 2026: the Sheriff's Office 65, Milwaukee police 50, West Allis 28, Greenfield 26. Milwaukee police also run 39 Genetec readers and Axon readers in 80 squads; Shorewood's parking-enforcement vehicles read plates; Bayside budgeted five in-squad readers; and 15 agencies belonged to the Wisconsin ALPR Association's shared in-squad network in 2021. Only River Hills shows no reader of any kind yet.

Sources: The agency table on this site, with the source for every system

A federal agency searched Milwaukee's cameras 11,506 times

Milwaukee police's own Flock network audit, released in May 2026 under a public records request filed on MuckRock (MR 199983), lists 11,506 searches by "[Federal] US Postal Inspection Service" that reached the city's cameras between September and December 2025. Most cite mail theft and robbery, and each swept about 3,200 networks. They stop when the nationwide search network was switched off. Midwest HIDTA (95 searches) and Indiana HIDTA (4) appear too; no organization named ICE, CBP, HSI, FBI, DEA or ATF does. In September 2026 Milwaukee police officials said they did not readily know whether federal agencies had access.

Sources: MuckRock request MR 199983 (the release itself)

Oak Creek: the contract in force is not the one the Council approved

Oak Creek's Common Council approved a no-cost data-sharing MOU on July 19, 2022, 4-0, and on February 20, 2023 a two-year camera agreement, signed that night by a police lieutenant. Nine months later the Chief signed a Master Services Agreement that replaced it: $178,800 over 60 months, auto-renewing about November 27, 2028, with no termination-for-convenience clause. The City has produced no record of a Council vote on that one.

Sources: Flock Safety contract, signed 2023 (City of Oak Creek, City Clerk, released Aug 19, 2026); Flock law enforcement agreement (City of Oak Creek, City Clerk, released Aug 19, 2026)

Oak Creek: no written policy exists

Asked for its ALPR use, retention and access policies, the Oak Creek Police Department determined in writing that no record exists. After three and a half years and more than $136,000 invoiced, the only governance document it holds is a five-page training outline, taught by the same lieutenant who signed the 2023 contract.

Sources: Flock invoice INV-10288 (City of Oak Creek, City Clerk, released Aug 6, 2026); Flock invoice INV-52553 (City of Oak Creek, City Clerk, released Aug 6, 2026); Flock invoice INV-79470 (City of Oak Creek, City Clerk, released Aug 6, 2026)

Oak Creek: 669 organizations, zero agreements

Oak Creek's own monthly sharing snapshots count the organizations it shares its cameras with: 455 on March 31, 2026 and 669 on June 30, 449 of them outside Wisconsin, up from 235 in three months. The Department determined that no written data-sharing agreements exist. In the other direction, its August 21, 2026 device list shows the 1,357 Flock networks its officers can search, holding 21,863 cameras, including retailers, hospitals, drug task forces, universities and a U.S. Postal Inspection Service network.

Oak Creek: one month of searches

Oak Creek's search audit log for July 12 to August 11, 2026 holds 590 searches by 54 distinct users; two of them account for 39%. Nearly half reached beyond 1,000 agency networks, and the widest reached 6,400. The most common stated reason was "Other", at 18%. The Department says it has access to only 30 days of this log.

A neighbor produced 46 months of audit log

Greendale's police department, on the same Flock platform, produced its entire search audit log as 46 monthly spreadsheets, from its first search on December 6, 2022 to September 22, 2026, exported in a single afternoon. Flock's own December 2025 notice to Oak Creek command staff said Organization audit logs "will remain unchanged." Greendale's export shows what the platform lets a Wisconsin agency produce; it does not show how Oak Creek's account is set up. None of Greendale's 9,806 searches reached more than 404 networks.

Sources: Policy 6.42, Automated License Plate Reader (amended) (Greendale Police Department, released Oct 9, 2026)

Oak Creek: a grocer donated three cameras

Cameras 13 through 15 went up in November 2025 under a deployment named "Woodman's Donation": a private company adding cameras to the city's network, outside the five-year contract. Flock billed the City $10,950 for them in September 2025 as year one of a separate 24-month term, and the City has produced no record of Council action on the gift.

Three other governments permitted Oak Creek's poles

Oak Creek's camera poles were permitted by WisDOT (State Highway 32, spring 2023), Milwaukee County DOT (county right-of-way, October 2023) and the City of Milwaukee, which owns the poles. Asked on September 11, 2026, Milwaukee County answered within hours that it never issued a permit for the two cameras at S. 13th St. and W. College Ave. The permit applications name the Police Department as the "utility facility owner", while the contract says every camera is owned by Flock.

What Oak Creek's Council was told in 2023

The two fact sheets Flock supplied "to share with your elected officials" before the February 2023 vote say the vendor "will never share or sell the data," that customers "own 100% of their data," that everything is deleted after 30 days, and that the Transparency Portal is free. By 2026, out-of-state agencies reach Wisconsin data, Oak Creek shares with 669 organizations, and its portal was never turned on.