RACINE COUNTY, Wis. (CBS 58) -- The Racine County sheriff has ordered the immediate removal of all Flock cameras operated by Racine County Sheriff's Office after learning the technology appears to have been collecting and retaining information beyond what the department understood and agreed to.

The announcement was made Friday, Sept. 4. 

According to a news release, the Racine County Sheriff's Office entered into an agreement with Flock -- an automatic license plate reader -- with the understanding that information collected by its cameras would be subject to a 30-day retention period and used for legitimate public-safety and crime-solving purposes. However, the sheriff's office learned Flock generates a separate data set from information collected by its cameras and markets the dataset to other government and private customers. 

“This is not what we agreed to, and it is not what the public was led to believe,” said Racine County Sheriff Christopher Schmaling. “The Sheriff’s Office will not participate in a system that appears to use public safety as a justification for mass surveillance and the collection and monetization of information about innocent people.

If Flock used the public-safety purpose of this technology to build a broader commercial data business without the public’s knowledge, that is a serious breach of trust. We will not tolerate it.”

Sheriff Schmaling says the department has obtained legal counsel and taking steps to terminate its agreement with Flock. 

The sheriff's office will continue to explore the use of Automatic License Plate Reader (ALPR) technology through alternative vendors.

“We are not abandoning a technology that can help us protect the public,” Sheriff Schmaling said. “We are abandoning a vendor that appears to have violated the trust placed in it. We will continue to use ALPR technology responsibly, with appropriate safeguards and accountability. The technology did not fail the public. Flock failed the public.”