Automated license plate readers such as this one are installed throughout Barrington Hills.
By Andrew Adams | Capitol News Illinois
An automatic license plate reader company used by hundreds of police departments around Illinois broke state law by allowing federal border enforcement officers to access Illinois license plate camera data, according to Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias.
The company, Flock Safety, was also allegedly used by out-of-state police earlier this year to look for a woman who recently had an abortion. That situation sparked the secretary of state’s office to audit Flock.
License plate readers are cameras which can automatically detect the license plate, make, model and other details of cars while they’re driving. These details are logged and entered into a database that can be searched and shared between law enforcement agencies, governments and private companies.
A 2023 state law, which was backed by Giannoulias, prohibits operators of license plate readers from sharing the data they collect for the purpose of enforcing immigration or abortion-related laws.
Giannoulias alleges that Flock gave U.S. Customs and Border Patrol access to Illinois data as part of a pilot program. Flock also didn’t have any safeguards to prevent other out-of-state police from violating Illinois’ license plate reader law, according to Giannoulias.
Giannoulias said the company’s actions “put them in direct violation of Illinois law” in a video statement Monday.
“We will not tolerate any violations to our data sharing and privacy laws,” Giannoulias said. “Moving forward, we encourage local law enforcement to closely examine their relationship with Flock and ensure that their use of this technology is compliant with the law.”
The law prohibiting this kind of data sharing does not contain any specific penalties for violating it.
Read more here.
Related: “Barrington Hills Police Department: Automated License Plate Readers,” “Privacy concerns raised over proliferation of license plate cameras,” “Barrington considers installing cameras to read license plates”
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