As Illinois police departments lobby city councils on the importance of cameras to combat crime, some are raising concerns about the right to privacy.
The American Civil Liberties Unions has released a report on Flock Safety, a company that sells license plate reading camera systems to taxing bodies. The ACLU report looks at how the technology is building a form of mass surveillance never seen before in American life.
Flock systems have been installed in 1,400 cities (including our Village) across the country and photograph more than a billion vehicles every month. Its ambition is to expand to “every single city in America.”
“We are concerned about all of this massive influx of technology over the last year or so and the question of what really happens to it and ultimately utilized,” said Ed Yohnka, director of communications and public policy with ACLU of Illinois.
Champaign and Peoria are using the technology.
In Springfield, taxpayers are paying $415,000 for 83 cameras to be installed in certain areas of the city.
Bloomington city leaders this month voted to install the license plate cameras despite opposition from the Central Illinois chapter of the ACLU.
Yohnka said company officials are using fear as a way to sell their products.
“The marketers of these systems are telling local leaders that they can adopt these systems in order to fight a recent spike in gun violence,” Yohnka said. “There’s actually no evidence that it works that way or that it will help in terms of that.”
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