Safety or surveillance? Debate over license plate cameras in the suburbs heats up

The heated national debate over the proliferation of automated license-plate reading cameras flared up in the suburbs this month, both in the halls of government and on the streets.

Rolling Meadows council members agreed this week to hold a special public session in August to address citizens’ concerns about the use of the cameras on city thoroughfares.

That comes days after the police chief in the small McHenry County village of Holiday Hills was charged with unlawfully accessing reader data to track six people from his personal life, including three women he dated.

In DuPage County, three men appeared in court Monday facing charges they stole or vandalized at least five cameras in and around Lisle. They’ve since become folk heroes to some, with one collecting nearly $8,000 in an online fundraiser to support his legal defense.

And in Kane County, county-owned cameras have been vandalized with red paint, with the word “DeFlock!” — an allusion the camera manufacturer Flock Safety — painted on surrounding pavement.

Police leaders defend the necessity and tout the benefits of the cameras, while state and local politicians are taking steps to rein in their use.

“This in my estimation is the best use of technology that I’ve seen in 20 years,” said Vernon Hills Police Chief Patrick Kreis, whose department was among the first in the suburbs to install the cameras. “In terms of keeping the community safe, there’s nothing like it.”

“It may save somebody's life,” Frank Giammarese, Bloomingdale's public safety director, added.

How cameras work

Like Vernon Hills and Bloomingdale, dozens of suburban police departments have added license-plate reading cameras to their arsenals since 2020, promoting them as tools to track criminals, locate missing people and find stolen vehicles.

Installed on poles along roadways, the cameras capture images of passing vehicles’ license plates then use AI-powered software to enter them into a database police can search to trace the movements of a vehicle.

In a July 10 public statement, the Illinois Association of Chiefs of Police said license-plate reading cameras “can be the difference between life and death, an unsolved crime, and offenders being held accountable for their actions.”

Police leaders from Aurora and Lake Zurich also voiced support for the cameras Thursday. Aurora police Cmdr. Ted Grommes said the cameras helped the department locate a woman and two children she abducted and arrest two suspects in a March shooting.

As for the vandalism? “While theft or damage to public safety equipment is a felony and concerning, those incidents have not changed the value of the technology or its role in our criminal investigations,” Grommes said.

‘Appropriate safeguards’

But the cameras have also raised alarms over their potential for misuse, from data being accessed for unlawful purposes to unconstitutional surveillance of citizens.

“Many communities are deploying these systems without appropriate privacy policies or practices for protecting personal information,” the ACLU of Illinois said in a statement earlier this year. “We know that, if we know where someone travels, we know a lot about that person. It tells us something if someone goes to church, to a bar, or to a political meeting. So using this information carefully and creating appropriate safeguards is critical.”

The Mount Prospect Police Department’s cameras became national news last summer, when it was revealed that a sheriff’s office in Texas accessed the Northwest suburb’s data while seeking a woman who had an abortion. That prompted the village to opt out of a national data-sharing program.

That and similar cases elsewhere led neighboring Arlington Heights this year to became the first town in Illinois to add financial penalties to its contract with Flock if an unauthorized user accesses local data.

Atlanta-based Flock is the dominant manufacturer of license-plate reading camera technology, providing nearly 83% of all cameras operating nationwide, by some estimates.

“The Arlington Heights Police Department over many, many years has developed a lot of trust in the community,” Trustee Wendy Dunnington said at the time. “It’s just really important that by us working with Flock Safety that we don’t ruin that trust.”

And in Springfield, a pair of Democratic state lawmakers from Arlington Heights — state Reps. Nicolle Grasse and Mary Beth Canty — are sponsoring the Automated License Plate Recognition System Act.

The measure would establish statewide rules for the use of license-plate reading cameras and the data they collect, outline prohibited uses, create reporting requirements and set penalties for unlawful use.

The camera debate came to Rolling Meadows on Tuesday, when resident Chris Olson urged city aldermen to stop paying Flock to operate cameras in town.

“When these systems are misused, they become tools for harassment, stalking and violations of basic privacy rights at precisely the scale and speed that makes accountability difficult, and that's why they're a liability rather than an asset for our community,” Olson said.

City Manager Rob Sabo said in response that he and Police Chief Anthony Peluso would address those concerns and explain how the cameras are used in Rolling Meadows at a public meeting in August.

“We want our community to be aware of the way these systems work and what it is they do,” he said.

· Do you have a thought on license-plate reading cameras or anything related? Drop us a note at copsandcrime@dailyherald.com.