Roselle Police Department acquires license plate-reading camera system

The Roselle Police Department has leased a new license plate reader system to help with parking enforcement and more in the village Metra parking lot.

The $44,730 ReaperHD Mobile LPR camera system will be installed on a squad car to automate the village's parking enforcement system, which previously had been done manually.

Created by Vigilant Solutions, a subsidiary of Motorola, the system will be able to identify vehicles that do not pay for parking, do not have current village stickers, have multiple past due violations or similar infractions.

Additionally, the system may identify wanted vehicles entered into the Illinois State Law Enforcement Data System, which would be handled by other law enforcement officers.

"This is us trying to come into the 21st century," Roselle Police Chief Steve Herron said. "Instead of doing hours of manual work, we can get most of the work done within 15 minutes."

The system will use three cameras to take photos of license plates in the area and then upload the pictures to a secure database owned by Vigilant Solutions with the date, time and location of the vehicles.

The "subscription" model of purchase will let the village use the camera for five years and would be in use by one community service officer at a time.

Herron said the vehicle history data is deleted within 24 hours.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois has criticized Vigilant Solutions for sharing data with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Police departments can opt into sharing the data with ICE, which is also a customer of Vigilant Solutions.

Herron has said that Roselle does not share data with ICE.