A Milwaukee police officer was criminally charged on Tuesday after using license plate recognition technology to surveil a person he was dating and the person’s ex for two months last year, the authorities said.
The officer, Josue Ayala, 33, used the technology, from Flock Safety, to track his partner and the person’s ex, according to a criminal complaint made public on Tuesday.
Mr. Ayala ran searches on his partner’s license plate 124 times from March to May 2025, according to the complaint. He did the same action to his partner’s ex 55 times, the authorities said.
Flock says it provides camera systems and license plate readers to more than 5,000 law enforcement agencies and 1,000 businesses across the country.
Mr. Ayala said he had used Flock to search for the license plates for an “investigation,” according to the authorities, but he was instead using the technology for personal reasons. He was on duty for the Milwaukee Police Department each time he ran the plates, according to the complaint.
Mr. Ayala’s partner’s ex learned about the location tracking from the website Have I Been Flocked, which shows people when their license plates have been searched in the company’s systems. The ex initially believed Mr. Ayala had searched their plate more than 100 times, according to the complaint.
The Milwaukee Police Department said in a news release on Tuesday that it had suspended Mr. Ayala. His resignation agreement with the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s Office is pending.
Mr. Ayala was charged with attempted misconduct in public office, a misdemeanor. If convicted, he could face up to nine months in prison and a $10,000 fine.
It was not immediately clear if Mr. Ayala had a lawyer.
Jeffrey Norman, the chief of the Milwaukee Police Department, said in the news release that he was “extremely disappointed” in Mr. Ayala’s behavior and promised to hold him accountable.
Paris Lewbel, a spokesman for Flock Safety, said on Wednesday that each search conducted using Flock is recorded to an audit log that documents the reason for the search, the user who performed it and its parameters.
Those audit logs allow law enforcement agencies to effectively investigate cases like Mr. Ayala’s, Mr. Lewbel said.
“When concerns arise, agencies have the tools to review activity and take appropriate action,” Mr. Lewbel said.
The Ring home security company, which is owned by Amazon, announced this month that it would no longer work with Flock Safety after a Super Bowl advertisement for a partnership between the companies prompted a backlash. The collaboration was a feature that would have allowed homeowners to share footage from their Ring cameras with local police during investigations.
Flock Safety also came under scrutiny last year after reports that its services had been used to aid federal immigration enforcement.
Flock Safety said in a news release in August that it had worked on “limited pilots” with U.S. Customs and Border Protection and Homeland Security investigations, but had paused those collaborations. The company has since vehemently denied that it currently works divisions under Homeland Security, including U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Hannah Ziegler is a general assignment reporter for The Times, covering topics such as crime, business, weather, pop culture and online trends.
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