By rssfeeds-admin SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP/WGN) — The Illinois secretary of state on Thursday asked for an investigation into a suburban Chicago police department after learning that it violated state law by sharing data from automatic license-plate readers with a Texas sheriff seeking a woman who had an abortion.
Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias asked the attorney general to review the matter. He also is creating an audit system to ensure police departments don’t run afoul of a 2023 law banning the distribution of license-plate data to track women seeking abortions or to find undocumented immigrants.
The incident underscores the fears that led to the law: In particular, that states which restricted abortion access after Roe v. Wade was overturned would use the technology to follow and possibly prosecute women seeking the procedure by crossing into Illinois, where it is readily available.
“License plate readers can serve as an important tool for law enforcement, but these cameras must be regulated so they aren’t abused for surveillance, tracking the data of innocent people or criminalizing lawful behavior,” the Democrat said in a statement.
Data on what states have an Illinois-style prohibition on license-plate data sharing are not readily available. However, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, Illinois is one of 22 states and the District of Columbia that have shield laws protecting abortion patients and providers from criminal or civil action from states that restrict the procedure.
An expert in privacy law, however, said that as long as states share the data, there will be misuse. That is because the process relies on police departments telling the truth about why they want the information, said Albert Fox Cahn, executive director of the New York-based Surveillance Technology Oversight Project.
“We’re basically just asking cops to pinky-swear that they won’t misuse this data and then act shocked when they do,” Cahn said.
According to Giannoulias, police in Mount Prospect, 24 miles (39 kilometers) northwest of Chicago, shared license-plate data with the sheriff in Johnson County, Texas, who was looking for a woman whose family was worried because she had undergone a self-administered abortion.
Giannoulias says Mount Prospect also shared data outside of Illinois on undocumented immigrants, in violation of the law. Between mid-January and April, there were 262 searches on immigration-related matters in Mount Prospect alone, he said.
Telephone and email messages were left for Mount Prospect Police Chief Michael Eterno. WGN-TV also reached out for comment. Violations by Mount Prospect could result in loss of state funding, deputy Secretary of State Scott Burnham said.
The incident was revealed by a website called 404 Media, which reported that the Texas sheriff sent a nationwide request for data from 83,000 cameras operated by the private company Flock Safety, including those in Mount Prospect.
At Giannoulias’ request, Flock Safety blocked access to 62 out-of-state agencies that have sought data related to abortion or immigration, Burnham said. The company also set up a program to flag the terms “abortion” and “immigration” in requests for access and deny those applications.
Police agencies will also be required to comply with audits by the secretary of state to mark trends or upticks in certain requests, Burnham said.
The Flock Safety cameras take photos of passing license plates thousands of times a day. The technology, called Automatic License Plate Recognition, is helpful in tracking stolen vehicles or carjackings, missing persons and in other authorized cases.
The technology allows police agencies to read thousands of license plates per minute from images captured by cameras along roadways.
The first-in-the-nation law restricting the reasons for sharing data, which Giannoulias pushed, was one of several pieces of legislation Democrats who control the Illinois General Assembly adopted as lawmakers in the post-Roe v. Wade world strengthened abortion’s availability and accessibility.
Mount Prospect police responds
Early Thursday evening, Mount Prospect police responded to the state’s investigation, saying, in part, that “Data from Mount Prospect, along with other Illinois law enforcement agencies, was accessed through the Flock Safety “National Lookup” feature by other law enforcement agencies for purposes of immigration enforcement. 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.”
Mount Prospect police continued:
The Illinois Secretary of State’s Office investigation revealed that other law enforcement
agencies conducted 262 immigration-related searches on Mount Prospect’s ALPR data.
It is likely other Illinois communities with Flock cameras would show similar searches of
their local cameras if audited. MPPD was unaware of these searches until being notified
by the Illinois Secretary of State’s Office at the end of the day on June 11.The Mount Prospect Police Department learned at the end of May that the Johnson
County Sheriff’s Department in Texas utilized the Flock Safety “National Lookup”
feature, accessing the data from over 83,000 cameras around the country, including
Mount Prospect’s. Mount Prospect Police did not have a data sharing agreement with
this agency and reached out to Flock Safety to inquire about the search. Flock Safety
explained that by opting into the “National Lookup” feature, which Mount Prospect did,
it permitted other law enforcement agencies who also utilized this feature to search
Mount Prospect ALPR data without a data sharing agreement. MPPD was not made
aware of this capability prior to the investigation. Flock has stated a need to increase
communications with participating communities around this two-way sharing feature.
“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”, said Chief of Police Michael Eterno. “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.”Statement from Mount Prospect Police Department
In conclusion, Mount Prospect police said it has taken immediate steps to mitigate and prevent the issue from occurring again, in addition to following preventive measures which include:
- Opting out of the Flock Safety “National Lookup” feature
- Cancelling any data sharing agreement with law enforcement agencies that violated Illinois state law
- Revoking access to Mount Prospect’s ALPR data for all law enforcement
agencies outside of Illinois - Updating their ALPR policy to include regular audits of the searches being conducted by internal and external users
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