Texas police 'abused' license plate data for immigration search, Illinois police say
The Johnson County Sheriff's Office allegedly used data from Automated License Plate Reader (ALPR) — also referred to as Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) — through Flock Safety, a private company. The "National Lookup" feature is used by law enforcement agencies "for purposes of immigration enforcement."
The Illinois Secretary of State's Office notified the Mount Prospect Police Department that it was among multiple other law enforcement agencies whose data was used by the Texas department.
"The use of ALPR data collected by Mount Prospect Flock Safety cameras for this purpose does not align with the Mount Prospect Police Department's values and is a clear violation of Illinois state law," the Chicago department stated in a press release.
A site called 404 Media shows the Johnson County Sheriff's Office requested data from 83,000 of Flock Safety's cameras, including those in Mount Prospect.
Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias is requesting an investigation into the incident by the attorney general, The Independent reports. He says he is also making an audit system to prevent similar uses of ALPR data in the future.
A 2023 Illinois law prohibits the sharing of license plate data to track undocumented immigrants or people seeking abortions.
A total of 262 immigrant-related searches were made between mid-January and April in Mount Prospect alone, Giannoulias said. Deputy Secretary of State Scott Burnham warned that such violations could lead to the loss of state funding.
Giannoulias says he requested that Flock Safety block access to 62 out-of-state agencies seeking data related to abortion or immigration. The ALPR company also created a program to flag access requests with the terms "abortion" and "immigration" and deny the requests. Finally, law enforcement agencies will be required to respect the secretary of state's audits with the goal of noting trends in certain requests, Burnham explained.
"I am tremendously upset that some law enforcement agencies who agreed to follow Illinois law, in order to gain access to our ALPR data, conducted illegal searches violating the trust of our community," Chief of Police Michael Eterno said. "As disappointed as I am with these other agencies, I want to emphasize that no member of the Mount Prospect Police Department shared ALPR data in violation of the law.
I realize that this misuse of Mount Prospect's ALPR data violates the trust of our community, and we as a department will continue to work to enhance the Flock ALPR software and ensure this abuse does not occur in the future."
Following the incident with the Johnson County Sheriff's Office, the Mount Prospect Police Department said it has made, or plans to make, several changes to prevent similar incidents in the future, including
opted out of the Flock Safety "National Lookup" feature
cancelled any data sharing agreement with law enforcement agencies who violated Illinois state law
revoked access to Mount Prospect's ALPR data for all law enforcement agencies outside of Illinois
will be updating its ALPR policy to include regular audits of the searches being conducted by internal and external users
As of Friday morning, the Johnson County Sheriff's Office had not issued a public statement about the incident. The name of the individual who was the focus of the search has not been disclosed to the public.
Flock Safety has released a statement amid what it calls "a misunderstanding."
The ALPR company indicated contact with the Johnson County Sheriff's Office regarding the incident in Illinois, seeking to correct "misreporting" that the program was used "to target people seeking reproductive healthcare." The Sheriff allegedly told Flock Safety that this "is unequivocally false."
"According to the Sheriff's office, a local family called and said their relative had self-administered an abortion, and then she ran away," Flock Safety said. "Her family feared she was hurt, and asked the deputy to search for her to the best of their abilities. Law enforcement performed a nationwide search in Flock, the broadest search possible within the system, to try to locate her quickly. Luckily, she was found safe and healthy in Dallas a couple of days later."
The woman faces no charges and was never under criminal investigation, the ALPR company added, saying that Texas police were looking for her as a missing person rather than as a crime suspect.
"We're grateful for the opportunity to work with Illinois officials to clarify what happened, correct misconceptions, and implement lasting improvements that uphold the trust of both law enforcement agencies and the residents they serve."
— The Independent contributed to this report.
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Texas police use of license plate data under investigation in Illinois
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
CBS News
24-07-2025
- CBS News
When license plate readers get it wrong
In 2018, Brian Hofer and his younger brother were driving to visit their parents for Thanksgiving. It should have been a routine trip. But that evening they found themselves held at gunpoint by a group of law enforcement officers. The incident was the result of technology gone wrong. Hofer's vehicle had been flagged as stolen by an Automated License Plate Reader — ALPR — system. When he drove by, the reader alerted authorities. "Your life definitely is different after you have guns pointed at you," he said. This incident is one of over a dozen cases verified by CBS News during a six-month investigation into incidents of wrongful stops and even several instances of ALPR technology being abused. The consequences of ALPR errors can range from the inconvenient — such as mistaken toll booth charges — to the potentially dangerous, such as Hofer's armed detainment. In some instances the technology was improperly used by authorities, such as in Kansas, where law enforcement officers used license plate reader systems to stalk former partners in two separate incidents. In use since at least the late 1990s, automated license plate reader systems have advanced quickly in recent years. They now marry high-speed, high-resolution cameras with artificial intelligence to scan every license plate passing through a designated field of vision. The data is then compared against license plate numbers in databases. Thousands of agencies use these systems daily to scan plates in real time and identify potential matches. Departments use ALPRs as a crime-fighting tool to gather evidence for investigations and reduce crime as well as for traffic compliance. According to a survey from the Bureau of Justice Statistics, every police department overseeing more than one million citizens reported using the technology, as did 90% of sheriff's offices with 500 or more sworn deputies. Law enforcement officials told CBS News that the technology has allowed them to do their job more efficiently and has helped solve crimes ranging from stolen vehicles to missing persons cases. Pat Yoes, the national president of The National Fraternal Order of Police, an organization of hundreds of thousands of sworn law enforcement officers, said in an emailed statement to CBS News that ALPRs are "extraordinarily important in cases where there is an immediate threat to life or safety, as in an abduction or an armed threat driving to a target," adding that the information can be valuable in generating leads and closing cases. He said transparency is key. "The community should be made aware of the new technology, how it's used in the field, how it contributes to public safety, and how it addresses any privacy concerns," he said in the statement. "Technology like ALPRs is a valuable tool for many law enforcement agencies to make their communities safer." The rise of ALPR systems comes as law enforcement agencies across the country face staffing and recruiting challenges. A 2024 survey by the International Association of Chiefs of Police, a professional association, found that U.S. agencies are operating at a nearly 10% staffing deficit. ALPR technology is one way to help fill this gap in manpower. License plate reader errors may occur for a variety of reasons. In some cases, letters or numbers are interpreted incorrectly by the Optical Character Recognition, or OCR, software. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, common issues including glare or misaligned cameras could impact accuracy. CBS News found that mistakes are often due to a mix of machine and human or administrative errors. In Española, New Mexico, a 12-year-old was handcuffed after an ALPR camera misread the last number of a license plate on a vehicle driven by her older sister as a '7' instead of the '2' it actually ended with, according to a lawsuit filed against the city. A month later, in a separate incident, a 17-year-old honors student was held at gunpoint in Española on his way home from school after officers mistook his vehicle for one associated with an individual who was being sought in connection with a string of armed robberies. In Aurora, Colorado, in 2020, a mother and her family, including her 6-year-old daughter, were pulled over at gunpoint and forced to lie face down on hot pavement. Again, ALPR technology was central to the stop. Police mistakenly flagged their Colorado license plate as matching that of a completely different vehicle from a different state — a stolen motorcycle registered in Montana. The incident, captured on video and widely condemned, led to a $1.9 million settlement from the city in 2024. The ACLU warns ALPR cameras could infringe on civil rights and violate the Constitution's Fourth Amendment by encouraging unreasonable searches. Despite widespread use, there is no federal legislative framework for ALPR use. Hofer, who has been involved in privacy advocacy for over a decade, is now the executive director of Secure Justice, an organization that aims to reduce government and corporate overreach. He says manual verification is necessary to see whether ALPR "hits," or matches, are accurate. Even so, he said, such checks are insufficient because data errors could cause a plate to "match" an incorrect entry in a database. "There are billions of scans a day in America. If there's even just a 10% error rate, that means there are so many opportunities for abuse to happen," Hofer said. Some concerned citizens are taking action. Last year, residents of Norfolk, Virginia, filed a federal lawsuit against the city, and in Illinois, two residents have sued the Illinois State Police over ALPR systems, arguing that their use violates Fourth Amendment rights. The latter case was dismissed without prejudice in Denault contributed to this report.
CBS News
24-07-2025
- CBS News
Berkeley closer to installing Flock surveillance cameras throughout the city
Berkeley could soon be getting at least 16 surveillance cameras installed throughout the city after the plan cleared another hurdle in a late-night Tuesday vote. In an 8-1 vote, city council approved the Surveillance Acquisition Report, which will let the Berkeley Police Department move forward with the contract work with Flock Safety and the implementation of the video cameras. The Flock cameras will capture live video but not audio, and will not have facial recognition, according to the report. Arlo Malmberg, the department's strategic planning and accountability manager, said that the cameras will not send any alerts to police, and Police Chief Jen Louis added that live video will not be monitored unless it is to confirm reports of an ongoing crime, such as an active shooter incident. The cameras will be in locations where there is pedestrian activity to avoid overlap with the city's automated license plate readers, the report states. While both the cameras and ALPRs are through Flock, the systems will not communicate or be integrated with each other, Malmberg said. According to the report, the cameras will be at the following locations. Other possible locations, if there is enough funding, include Ashby and Domingo avenues, Ashby and San Pablo avenues, Dwight and San Pablo avenues, and University and San Pablo avenues According to the report, video will be retained for 180 days. "It often will not become clear that the footage is necessary at all until later in the investigation," Malmberg said. "When the policy was originally approved by council, the discussion recognized that 30 days was not enough … A year felt too long, so we landed on 180 days as a middle ground." Louis said it would also address concerns that footage will still be there in cases of delayed reporting of crimes. Malmberg said that only authorized Police Department personnel will be able to access footage and only for approved uses. Approved uses include supporting specific and active criminal investigations, serious traffic-related investigations, police misconduct investigations and responding to and reviewing critical incidents or natural disasters. Other law enforcement agencies will not be able to directly access Berkeley's footage. Any requests for data will have to go through Berkeley Police, and anything relevant will then be downloaded and shared, Malmberg said. There will be a biannual audit of the surveillance system and the access log. Any time the data is accessed, it will be logged, along with a reason for the access. The city council still has to approve a contract with Flock. Berkeley had previously approved the surveillance program, but another report had to be presented as they decided to move forward with a different vendor and because of the different technology being used, according to the report.
CBS News
22-07-2025
- CBS News
Orland Park DMV abruptly closing after trustee vote, Illinois secretary of state says
One of Illinois' busiest Secretary of State facilities is abruptly closing after Orland Township trustees voted to revoke its lease. The trustees claimed people going to the DMV at 14807 South Ravinia Ave. in Orland Park are causing disruptions and security concerns. At a Monday night board meeting, trustees said they have had issues with police calls over disturbances at the facility. The trustees said there is no separation between the Secretary of State facility and the rest of the building it's housed in. They said people go into the township building and trustees' offices while looking for the DMV. The trustees also said there are long lines in extreme weather despite people having appointments, and they dislike the signs outside because they make it look "like a flea market." Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias released a statement, saying the trustees made the decision in a 3-2 vote "without providing notice or consulting with Secretary of State staff." The statement goes onto say the board "failed their constituents and the taxpayers they are elected to serve." It was not immediately clear if the closure was effective immediately or when it would go into effect.
