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MAGNET S2 INTELLIGENCE REPORT — Flock Safety ALPR Deployment — MARS Region 5 — 260728-0245Z
MAGNET S2
Intelligence Report
Flock Safety ALPR Camera Deployment and Regulatory Divergence — MARS Region 5 (IL/IN/MI/MN/OH/WI)
DTG: 260728-0245Z  |  Geographic Focus: MARS Region 5 (Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Wisconsin)  |  Precedence: RR – ROUTINE
www.magnethf.com
Report Identification
Subject Flock Safety ALPR Camera Deployment and Regulatory Divergence — MARS Region 5 (IL/IN/MI/MN/OH/WI)
Purpose Provide intelligence assessment of Flock Safety automated license plate reader (ALPR) camera deployment, state-level regulatory posture, and data-sharing risk across MARS Region 5 for operator situational awareness and personal OPSEC planning.
DTG 260728-0245Z
Reporting Period January 2026 – 28 July 2026
Geographic Focus MARS Region 5 (Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Wisconsin)
Precedence RR – ROUTINE
MagCon Status 3 – ELEVATED (NO CHANGE)
Sources Multiple source reporting from Local, National, and International platforms. See source list at the bottom of this report.
Summary (BLUF)

MARS Region 5 shows the most active enforcement-vs-adoption conflict of any MAGNET region reviewed to date: unlike Region 1’s clean regulatory divide, every Region 5 state combines weak or absent state statute with documented cases of agencies violating existing law, prompting a wave of municipal contract cancellations running in parallel with continued expansion. Illinois has a statute barring immigration-related sharing (625 ILCS 5/2-130), yet a 2025 Secretary of State audit found Flock let CBP access Illinois cameras anyway; Minnesota’s law restricts ALPR use to criminal investigations, yet current reporting shows Twin Cities agencies searching plate data for ICE’s Operation Metro Surge. Wisconsin’s Dane County became a national bellwether after a 32-1 board vote defunded its Flock contract, cameras were physically covered when Flock did not remove them by the deadline, and the county then reinstated funding for a competing vendor rather than exiting ALPR entirely. Indiana and Ohio remain without comprehensive statutes; Michigan has a bipartisan regulatory bill pending alongside an active controversy over a state DOT agreement granting federal Border Patrol camera access.

Background

Flock Safety’s national network has grown to more than 100,000 camera devices and over 5,000 client communities as of mid-2026. MARS Region 5 (Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Wisconsin) is a large, industrial, and politically mixed region in which every state has either a weak/absent ALPR statute or documented instances of the law being circumvented in practice — a pattern distinct from Region 1, where the primary divide was simply the presence or absence of statute.

A 2025-2026 wave of state audits and investigative reporting, most consequentially an Illinois Secretary of State audit, found Flock’s networked database structure allowed agencies to query other agencies’ data far more broadly than state law permitted in several states, including cross-border sharing implicating Region 5 states and neighboring jurisdictions.

Situation
Illinois

Illinois law (625 ILCS 5/2-130) bars sharing ALPR data with federal immigration authorities or out-of-state agencies for certain purposes. In August 2025, Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias’s office audited the state’s ALPR data flows and found Flock Safety had allowed U.S. Customs and Border Protection to access Illinois camera data in violation of that law; Giannoulias ordered the access shut off, and Flock separately paused federal pilot projects nationally in response. A subsequent 404 Media investigation, based on a Danville, IL public records request, found local and state police nationwide had searched ALPR data over 4,000 times for immigration-related reasons in an 11-month period despite Illinois’s statutory prohibition. Pending House Bill 5151 (Rep. Jeff Keicher) would further define permitted ALPR use and retention; police groups are reported to be strongly opposed. DeFlock mapping shows 6,277 documented Illinois cameras, ranking the state #5 nationally by camera count; deployments continue at the municipal level (e.g., Wilmette’s 22-unit rollout, Sugar Grove’s 4-unit system).

Wisconsin

Wisconsin has no comprehensive state ALPR statute. Dane County (Madison) became the region’s most closely watched case study: the County Board voted 32-1 on April 16, 2026 to remove the $80,000 budget line funding its Flock subscription, citing the sheriff’s office’s inability to affirmatively confirm that partner agencies or Flock itself were not misusing shared data. When the contract expired May 31 and Flock did not remove its cameras, the Sheriff’s Office covered them rather than continue use. On June 25, 2026, the County Board reinstated the $80,000 line — not to resume Flock, but to fund a different ALPR provider, indicating the county’s objection was contract- and vendor-specific rather than a rejection of ALPR technology outright. Verona removed its cameras after declining to renew; Monona suspended access and paused renewal; Madison currently has no ALPR contract and is the only Wisconsin city with a CCOPS (Community Control Over Police Surveillance) ordinance. Statewide legislative activity remains nascent relative to the municipal-level backlash.

Michigan

Michigan has no comprehensive ALPR statute. A bipartisan two-bill package (Reps. Jimmie Wilson Jr. and Doug Wozniak) is pending to regulate collection, storage, and sharing. More than 125 Michigan cities and counties use ALPR cameras in some form; the state itself holds a $2.626 million Flock Safety contract running through June 2030. In the current reporting week, 15 Democratic state lawmakers sent a letter to the Michigan Department of Transportation demanding it end a Master Maintenance Memorandum of Understanding — originating under the prior federal administration — that permits U.S. Border Patrol’s Detroit Sector and Homeland Security Investigations to install surveillance equipment, including ALPR cameras, on MDOT trunkline property. Separately, revised Flock contract terms published in February 2026 were criticized for expanding the company’s data-retention rights and legal protections, according to Mackinac Center analysis.

Indiana

Indiana has no statewide ALPR statute apart from a narrow 2026 provision barring homeowners’ associations from operating their own ALPR systems. The ACLU of Indiana launched a “Get Flock Out of Indiana” campaign in July 2026. Bloomington’s Flock contract expired March 5, 2026, coinciding with a Common Council resolution calling for a full report on the program’s data access, policies, and safeguards — a review still underway as of this reporting period. Eyes Off Indiana’s crowdsourced mapping documents extensive statewide deployment: 519 cameras in Indianapolis, 89 in Fort Wayne, 59 in Tippecanoe County, 53 in South Bend, with agencies reporting roughly 690 vehicle detections per camera per day. Michigan City PD separately received approximately $180,000 in federal community-project funding in 2024 to expand its Flock deployment for cross-jurisdictional data sharing into Indiana, northeast Indiana, and beyond.

Minnesota

Minnesota law (Minn. Stat. §13.824, under the Government Data Practices Act) restricts ALPR data sharing to criminal investigations. Current Star Tribune reporting (past week) found Twin Cities-area agencies had searched Flock camera data in connection with federal immigration enforcement during an operation described as “Operation Metro Surge,” with some departments’ searches initially logged as civil immigration enforcement before being recharacterized as criminal-investigation related; ALPR cameras in Columbia Heights were physically covered following the disclosures. A March 2026 ACLU-MN data request found some agencies permitting nearly 300,000 searches per month against their camera networks, and the organization is a party to related litigation (Tincher v. Noem) alleging ALPRs were used to identify protest observers during the operation. A regulatory-tightening bill (Rep. Brad Tabke) requiring warrants for out-of-state ALPR access stalled on a 7-7 tie vote in the House Judiciary Finance and Civil Law Committee, a direct consequence of Minnesota’s evenly split (67-67) House and its power-sharing rules. Minneapolis PD does not currently operate Flock cameras; Brooklyn Park allowed its Flock contract to lapse over case-documentation compliance concerns and moved to Axon.

Ohio

Ohio has no comprehensive state ALPR statute. Cleveland enacted local legislation on July 15, 2026 that disables the Northeast Ohio Regional Fusion Center’s access to the city’s Flock data, requires an online transparency portal, and mandates quarterly usage reports to City Council — following the police chief’s earlier disclosure that all outside-agency search access had already been disabled pending the ordinance. A federal ruling from the Northern District of Ohio (Judge J. Philip Calabrese) denied suppression of warrantless ALPR evidence in a robbery case, part of a broader pattern of federal courts declining to find Fourth Amendment violations in current-generation ALPR deployments. Franklin County (Columbus) departments have spent nearly $2 million on 319 documented cameras across 15 agencies; DeFlock separately maps roughly 6,120 cameras statewide.

Comments / Assessment
The Region 5 Pattern: Statute Alone Does Not Prevent Circumvention

Region 5 is distinguished from Region 1 by a consistent finding: even where a state statute exists (Illinois, Minnesota), current-period audits and investigative reporting document the law being circumvented in practice — via informal federal access (Illinois) or mission-creep search justification (Minnesota) — rather than the statute itself being absent. This suggests that for Region 5 members, the presence of a state ALPR statute should not be read as a reliable indicator of actual data-sharing risk without corroborating audit or compliance reporting.

Contract Instability Reflects Vendor Trust, Not Just Policy

Dane County’s reinstatement of ALPR funding for a non-Flock vendor after cutting Flock specifically indicates that at least some Region 5 contract cancellations reflect vendor-specific trust deficits rather than opposition to ALPR technology as a category. Members should not assume a municipality that drops Flock has exited ALPR surveillance altogether; verify current vendor status before assuming a jurisdiction’s plate-data exposure has been eliminated.

Legislative Gridlock as a Structural Risk Factor

Minnesota’s evenly divided legislature producing a tie-vote failure on ALPR reform is a mechanism specific to that state’s current political composition but illustrates a broader Region 5 pattern: several pending bills (Illinois HB 5151, Michigan’s Wilson/Wozniak package) face active law-enforcement-lobby opposition described directly in sourcing, suggesting passage is not assured even where bipartisan sponsorship exists.

Camera Effectiveness vs. Community Trust-Building

As in Region 1, independent non-vendor-funded evaluations of ALPR effectiveness remain limited and more mixed than vendor marketing suggests. The Police Executive Research Forum’s randomized controlled trial in Mesa, AZ found no measurable reduction in auto theft from LPR use in hot-spot deployment; a National Institute of Justice quasi-randomized patrol study found increased stolen-vehicle recoveries but no reduction in new-crime likelihood while an officer was present. The Campbell Collaboration’s 80-study CCTV meta-analysis found a modest but real 16% overall crime reduction, concentrated in parking-lot settings (51% reduction) and strongest when paired with other interventions. Procedural-justice and community-policing research continues to show smaller direct crime effects but stronger, more consistently replicated effects on citizen trust and willingness to report crime — the reporting pipeline that camera data ultimately depends on to become clearance outcomes. This is directly relevant to Region 5 jurisdictions currently reviewing contracts (Bloomington, IN; Dane County, WI) or defending existing ones (Cleveland, OH) amid active public trust disputes.

Probability Assessment
Assessed Outcome (2026–2028 Horizon) Probability Confidence
Additional Region 5 municipalities cancel Flock contracts specifically (vendor-targeted, not category-wide) HIGH Moderate
Illinois HB 5151 or a comparable retention/access bill enacted this session MODERATE Low-Moderate
Additional documented instance of state-law circumvention (immigration-related search) surfaces in IL, MN, or WI HIGH Moderate
Michigan enacts the Wilson/Wozniak regulatory package this session LOW-MODERATE Low
Continued net regional ALPR camera-count growth despite active cancellations and legislative activity HIGH High
Intelligence Gaps
  • What non-Flock vendor did Dane County select, and does it carry the same cross-agency sharing risk profile as Flock’s network?
  • Will the Michigan Wilson/Wozniak bill package advance out of committee, and does it address private-vendor data practices or only government use, as Iowa’s parallel debate has highlighted as a key distinction?
  • What is the current operational status of the MDOT/Border Patrol MOU following this week’s legislative demand letter?
  • Has Cleveland’s July 15 ordinance been tested against an actual attempted fusion-center access request since enactment?
  • What specific retention period and audit requirements, if any, are contained in the Illinois HB 5151 text as currently amended?
  • Does the Minnesota ACLU’s Tincher v. Noem litigation have a scheduled hearing date within the current reporting cycle?
Mitigation Recommendations
  • Members traveling through Region 5 should not treat the presence of a state ALPR statute (Illinois, Minnesota) as a reliable protection; current audits document active circumvention of both states’ laws via informal federal access.
  • Where a municipality is reported to have “canceled” or “dropped” Flock, verify whether it exited ALPR entirely or switched vendors (as in Dane County, WI and Brooklyn Park, MN) before assuming reduced exposure.
  • Track Illinois HB 5151, Michigan’s Wilson/Wozniak package, and any renewed Minnesota reform effort for enactment status.
  • Monitor for additional immigration-enforcement-related ALPR search disclosures in Illinois and Minnesota, given the documented pattern in both states this reporting period.
  • Watch Cleveland’s fusion-center access cutoff and Dane County’s vendor transition as potential models other Region 5 jurisdictions may replicate.
  • Encourage Region 5 agencies weighing contract decisions to pair any camera investment with community trust-building and procedural-justice practices, consistent with independent research showing stronger, more reliable effects on the citizen-reporting pipeline than camera deterrence alone.
  • Reduce overall digital footprint, including migrating primary mobile devices used for MAGNET-related activity to de-googled builds (e.g., GrapheneOS-class operating systems) that do not run default Google Mobile Services, or equivalent de-Appled configurations.
  • Do not use cell phones for purchases, including tap-to-pay/mobile wallet transactions, which expose real-time location correlated to any signed-in account regardless of which account is used for the transaction.
  • Use offline-capable, login-free navigation applications such as Magic Earth in place of Google Maps or Apple Maps for MAGNET-related travel.
  • Where feasible, disable or restrict background location permissions for non-essential applications on devices used for MAGNET activity, and periodically audit ‘always allow’ location access.
MAGNET Guidance

Members conducting field activity, meetups, or equipment transport within Region 5 should treat state ALPR statutes in Illinois and Minnesota as necessary but not sufficient protection, given documented current-period circumvention in both states; assume federal-agency access risk is present regardless of state statutory posture.

PACE tier: where movement to Region 5 activities is communications-sensitive, Primary and Alternate coordination should continue to rely on established MAGNET HF/JS8Call/VarAC BBS channels rather than cellular check-ins, consistent with standing MAGNET guidance across all regions.

Report any confirmed instance of a Region 5 agency sharing plate data involving MAGNET-relevant travel with unauthorized third parties, any newly discovered federal-agency informal access arrangement, or any vendor-transition pattern comparable to Dane County’s, through standard S2 intake channels.

Source List
Submit reports through established MAGNET situational awareness channels.
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