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Resident urges Stoughton to end Flock camera contract, raise oversight questions
Summary
During public comment, Kristen Fordyce Hercules asked the Stoughton City Council to terminate the city's Flock camera contract and withdraw from the vendor'wide surveillance network, citing ACLU reporting, municipal reviews and concerns about data sharing, logging practices and racial disparities in ALPR deployment.
Kristen Fordyce Hercules, a Stoughton resident, told the council on June 9 that the city should end its contract with Flock and remove Stoughton from the company's national license and data-sharing network. "This council should end the Flock contract and withdraw Stoughton from the surveillance network," she said, urging elected oversight and public engagement on the decision.
Hercules said the ACLU of Wisconsin and municipal reviews have shown police departments often adopt surveillance tools without explicit approval from elected officials. She asked who in Stoughton has authority to authorize data-sharing partnerships, what written policies govern logging and audits, which agencies currently receive Stoughton data, and whether any written rule prevents sharing with U.S. immigration authorities. "We are told our data is not shared with ICE. Under what written policy? If ICE requested data tomorrow, what stops the police department from providing it?" she asked.
Hercules also warned that automatic license-plate reader (ALPR) systems can amplify racial disparities by being sited disproportionately in Black and Latino neighborhoods and by subjecting scanned plates to repeated checks against hot lists. She cited examples from Wisconsin in which departments later found national-search features and other capabilities reduced local control over who can query footage and plate data.
Mayor (presiding) told Hercules the city attorney and police chief are gathering information and that the council expects a formal update at the next meeting, and an alder asked Hercules to provide the list of municipalities that decided to cancel Flock contracts so staff could review those materials. A city finance/police staff member present said they would pass submitted documents to the chief and city attorney.
The council did not take formal action on the public comment. City staff indicated an informational report will be brought back to the council for review at a future meeting.
