(TNS) — Now that UW-Madison police have cut ties with Flock Safety, privacy advocates and others on campus say the community needs to be more involved in deciding which automated license plate readers, if any, the department uses in the future.
When eight of the company’s cameras first appeared on campus in July 2025, many people were taken by surprise, said Annette Zimmermann, a UW-Madison data science professor.
“The discourse in Madison was, we focused on, ‘Oh, whoops, I guess we have this tool now,’ and there was a website that outlined some technological specifics,” Zimmermann said. “This was not the result of ongoing civic deliberation, in which people really felt like their concerns are being heard.”…