A Flock camera in Oshkosh. March 31, 2026. PC: Fox 11 Online
GRAND CHUTE, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) — Grand Chute may have canceled its contract with Flock Safety Tuesday night, but the town is keeping all of its license plate reader cameras.
Officials voted unanimously to end Grand Chute’s contract with Flock. However, the town is entering into a new agreement with Axon, a company that also sells automatic license plate reader cameras — which law enforcement agencies use to help track and catch criminals.
“We talked with Axon and they offer a very solid product,” said Grand Chute Police Chief David Maas. “[It’s] something that we believe benefits the community in multiple ways and also respects resident privacy in a way that feels more comfortable, quite honestly.”
Maas said the town will have more knowledge of whether and how the data is being used by the agencies it shares with.
“Some of the changes programmatically that Flock has made to the system, that makes it harder for us to audit usage of our searches that are occurring with our data, is one of the driving forces [of the change],” said Maas. “Because it’s one thing for us to have internal controls, but when we’re sharing with external partners and we can’t audit data in the same way, it becomes somewhat concerning to us.”
Maas also cited “a pattern of inaccuracies” including with Flock’s relationship with Oshkosh, poor service with malfunctioning cameras and a lack of security protocols in agencies it shares data with.
Grand Chute will maintain 23 cameras, but Flock’s cameras will be replaced with Axon’s cameras by Sept. 1.
Unlike in other municipalities, no residents spoke out in favor of or against the Flock cameras at Tuesday’s meeting. The five-person town board decided to end their deal with Flock, which was set to expire next summer, and to enter into a new agreement with Axon.
Flock says the public should still trust its services. The company highlighted the success it has had catching criminals. A statement reads, in part:
Each agency owns and controls its data, including who can access it and whether it is shared. When issues are identified, our focus is on resolving them quickly. We have continued to invest in reliability, support and clearer customer communication, and we remain committed to being the kind of responsive public safety partner agencies can count on.
Maas said he already planned to recommend the board not renew the agreement with Flock when it was set to expire next summer, but the recent behavior of Flock sped up the process. The move has no financial change for the town.
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