Editor’s note: Today marks the second of a two-part series about automated license plate readers in northern Illinois. Thursday’s installment focused on cities’ successes. Today’s installment examines privacy concerns, national controversies, and ongoing debate.

When DeKalb County sheriff’s deputies found Holly and Gary Schmidt dead inside their Sycamore home Sept. 30, the victims of apparent blunt force trauma, deputies determined a car was missing from the scene, court records show.

DeKalb County Sheriff Andy Sullivan said license plate readers – often called LPRS and sometimes ALPRS for automated license plate readers – were used during the multiagency search for the car.

“One of the registered vehicles was missing from the home, and that vehicle was located on an LPR in Rockford,” Sullivan said.

Kevin Schmidt, who police say later confessed to plotting the killings, was apprehended by the Winnebago County Sheriff’s Office within three hours of DeKalb County sheriff’s deputies first entering the Schmidt home. Without the license plate reader that located the vehicle driven by Kevin Schmidt, police would have relied on the car’s description and word of mouth to hopefully determine its whereabouts.

But even as cases like this highlight the technology’s effectiveness, they also have intensified concerns about how much data is collected, and who controls it.

While police across northern Illinois credit automated license plate readers such as Flock cameras with solving serious crimes, privacy advocates and civil liberties groups are raising the alarm about the technology’s potential for abuse and how it could create warrantless surveillance.

Illinois has passed laws restricting how the data can be used, but questions remain about whether those protections are sufficient.

Recent cases involving misuse of the data have intensified the debate over whether current safeguards are sufficient.

Concerns over misuse in Joliet

Not everyone is convinced the cameras are being used appropriately. In Joliet, Sam Coffey, a candidate for the Joliet High School District 204 board, raised concerns at a Jan. 6 City Council meeting.

“A lieutenant recently in the Joliet Police Department was fired for reasons that included misuse of a license plate reader like this,” Coffey said.

Coffey was referring to Joliet Police Lt. Jeremy Harrison. An investigation by the city’s inspector general found Harrison violated several departmental policies, including the policy on the automated license plate reader system, city records show.

Following the investigation, Joliet Police Chief William Evans recommended Harrison’s termination last December.

“I’m not bringing that up to attack the department, I’m just saying it shows a basic truth that when surveillance tools are this powerful, policies alone can’t prevent the misuse and even trained professionals are susceptible to breaking community trust,” Coffey said.

Coffey urged the Joliet City Council to remove Flock cameras because they “create a system that continuously collects data on anyone who drives past them.”

“Many people have concerns with what happens with that data,” Coffey said.

Evans, asked about Flock cameras after Coffey’s comments, said they have been “instrumental in getting an arrest and a conviction” in every major crime that the police solve.

At a candidate forum in January, Will County Undersheriff Dan Jungles called Flock cameras the most important tool currently in law enforcement.

“We have solved dozens of murders, we have solved dozens of crimes,” Jungles said.

A petition calling for the end of their use in Joliet has collected 125 signatures, which may not be enough to end a practice that has strong support from city police.

National controversies raise red flags

The concerns are not limited to northern Illinois. In June, state Sen. Rachel Ventura, D-Joliet, and others joined Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias in condemning the use of Flock by the state of Texas to track a woman who traveled to Illinois to seek abortion services not allowed in Texas. According to Giannoulias’ office, more than 83,000 cameras were used to track the woman.

The Associated Press reported that Mount Prospect authorities shared license-plate data with the sheriff in Johnson County, Texas, who was looking for a woman whose family was worried because she had undergone a self-administered abortion. News stories also report that police said they were seeking help from the cameras to find her at the family’s request, out of concern for her safety and not to arrest her.

However, the case raised an alarm about how Flock data could be misused.

Secretary of State Giannoulias also said Mount Prospect shared data on undocumented immigrants with federal authorities, in violation of a law passed in 2023. Between mid-January and April, there were 262 searches on immigration-related matters in Mount Prospect alone, Giannoulias said.

Federal access violations alleged

In August, Giannoulias’ office announced that an audit had “discovered that U.S. Customs and Border Protection gained access to Illinois license plate camera data – a violation of state law.” Giannoulias “immediately ordered the company to shut off access to U.S. Customs and Border Protection” and said his office had “spearheaded legislation, which now gives us the tools needed to hold Flock accountable for its actions.”

A commentary posted on the ACLU website Aug. 18 said citizens should be warned of the technology, saying Flock “is building a dangerous nationwide mass-surveillance infrastructure.” The ACLU warned that “the problem with mass surveillance is that it always expands beyond the uses for which it is initially justified.”

Flock denies wrongdoing

In response to questions about the controversy and claims that Flock shares information with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Josh Thomas, chief communication officer for Flock, said, “We respectfully disagree.”

“No, Flock does not have a contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement [ICE] or any sub-agencies of the Department of Homeland Security,” according to a link to a company message that Thomas shared. “Flock does not share customer data with any federal agency without a local customer’s explicit choice and control.”

Thomas said every piece of data collected by Flock is owned and controlled by the local customer, whether that is a city, county, school district or private organization. Agencies can share camera access with other police departments on a one-to-one basis, by geographic radius, or statewide. Agencies also can choose to share data nationwide.

The DeKalb County Sheriff’s Office doesn’t have its own license plate reader program, but it has access to programs run by other law enforcement agencies in DeKalb County. Sullivan said his office uses LPRs “on a daily basis,” and described them as one of the first tools his office uses when responding to a report involving a vehicle.

Sullivan said LPRS allowed his office to efficiently determine that a call for a stolen vehicle was actually about a repossessed vehicle.

“It’s so responsive and quick, so it’s easily identifiable,” Sullivan said. “It’s a quick tool for us to use just to help find a vehicle.”

State protections and ongoing debate

But while police chiefs and top law enforcement officials across northern Illinois have been proponents of the technology’s incorporation into police work, others worry about the potential for abuse.

Khadine Bennett, the advocacy and intergovernmental affairs director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois, said there isn’t a state or federal regulation defining how long law enforcement agencies, or Flock Safety, can hold onto footage collected through ALPRS.

“Some places do it for 30 days, some people do it indefinitely,” Bennett said. “If you have all of that access to information, then you’re able to create a kind of a warrantless surveillance of somebody who is associated with that license plate.”

Bennett said the ACLU of Illinois advocates for a three-day retention period for data collected through LPRS. She also argued that a policy regarding the rationale for use needs to be created.

“The ability to track where people are going, and tracking them day after day after day, that’s the surveillance component that really worries us,” Bennett said, while noting there is not an expectation of privacy while driving in public.

Illinois did pass a law in 2023 restricting how license plate readers can be used, limiting their use to criminal investigations. However, the debate continues about whether those protections are sufficient.