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License-plate readers · Champaign County

Champaign County

Using license-plate readers · 3 agencies documented

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Champaign Police Department

Status
Using license-plate readers
Vendors
Flock Safety
Cameras
66
City page says 66 units authorized, plus department-owned cameras integrated for ALPR. Capitol News Illinois (Aug. 2025) reported 46 cameras per Flock transparency reports.
Contract
Flock Safety: $240,500 initial purchase · from 2022 · approved by Champaign City Council Dec. 2021 · Initial plan was 45-46 readers; first units went in during spring-summer 2022. City page gives a five-year contract term. (CU-CitizenAccess, Jan. 19, 2022; City of Champaign, date not shown)
Contract
Flock Safety: · approved by Champaign City Council Dec. 2023 · Council bill authorizing purchase and installation of more ALPRs; amount not given on the city page. (City of Champaign, date not shown)
  1. Dec. 2021 City Council approved Flock plate readers for $240,500 as part of an effort to reduce gun violence. (CU-CitizenAccess, Jan. 19, 2022)
  2. Dec. 2023 City Council authorized purchase and installation of additional Flock readers. (City of Champaign, date not shown)
  3. Aug. 2025 Capitol News Illinois reported 46 Champaign police cameras, per Flock transparency reports. (Capitol News Illinois (via NPR Illinois), Aug. 27, 2025)
Conflicts and open questions
  • City policy: reads and alerts kept 30 days unless evidence or subject to a lawful order. City ALPR page is undated.

From agency records.

Champaign County Sheriff's Office

Status
Program documented, current use unconfirmed
Vendors
Flock Safety
Cameras
9
9 Flock readers per a News-Gazette article (page metadata July 19, 2022; content suggests it was written in spring 2022).
  1. Nov. 2021 The Sheriff's Office put up nine Flock readers in November, the first Champaign agency to do so (Rantoul police had installed readers earlier in 2021). (The News-Gazette, date not shown)
Conflicts and open questions
  • News-Gazette page metadata dates the article July 19, 2022; its content suggests spring 2022. Installation in Nov. 2021 fits a Dec. 22, 2021 photo of a sheriff's reader.
  • Sheriff's Office is listed (Aug. 2026) as having access to UIPD plate-reader data, but its own current use was not confirmed.

Reported by news outlets; agency records not yet obtained.

University of Illinois Police Department (Urbana-Champaign)

Status
Using license-plate readers
Vendors
Flock Safety
Cameras
20
20 Flock cameras per campus spokesperson (WBEZ) and UIPD transparency portal (News-Gazette).
Contract
Flock Safety: more than $180,000 paid total since 2021 · from 2021 · WBEZ: UIUC was Flock's first public university client in Illinois, signing in 2021. (WBEZ, Sept. 17, 2026)
  1. 2021 Signed with Flock, the company's first Illinois public university client. (WBEZ, Sept. 17, 2026)
  2. Aug. 2026 UIPD's Flock portal reported 20 readers, more than 160,000 unique vehicles detected in 30 days, 142 searches and about 1,400 hotlist hits; it lists immigration enforcement among prohibited uses. Agencies with access include Champaign police, the county sheriff, Illinois State Police, IDNR and the Illinois Attorney General. (The News-Gazette, Aug. 2026)
  3. Sept. 17, 2026 WBEZ reported UIUC is one of five public universities in Illinois using Flock; outside agencies searched data from the three University of Illinois System campuses more than 650,000 times in a 30-day span in July-August 2026. (WBEZ, Sept. 17, 2026)
Conflicts and open questions
  • News-Gazette portal figures come from an article dated mid-August 2026 (page metadata Aug. 18) about charges over painted Flock cameras.

Reported by news outlets; agency records not yet obtained.

Statewide

  1. Jan. 1, 2020 The Tamara Clayton Expressway Camera Act took effect, creating the Illinois State Police plate-reader program on Cook County expressways. It is named for a woman shot on I-57 near Cicero Avenue on Feb. 4, 2019. (Illinois State Police, Division of Criminal Investigation, 2026)
  2. June 6, 2022 Gov. JB Pritzker signed an extension of the expressway camera program; the state police page lists $20 million from the IDOT Road Fund tied to that extension. (Illinois State Police, Division of Criminal Investigation, 2026)
  3. Aug. 11, 2023 Gov. Pritzker approved HB 3326 (Public Act 103-0540), effective Jan. 1, 2024. It bars plate-reader users from sharing data with any jurisdiction to investigate or enforce laws restricting reproductive or other lawful health care or allowing detention based on immigration status, requires out-of-state police to sign a written declaration before getting Illinois plate data, and treats the data as confidential. Capitol News Illinois reported the law sets no specific penalties. (Illinois General Assembly, Aug. 11, 2023; Capitol News Illinois, Aug. 27, 2025)
  4. March 2025 U.S. District Judge Martha Pacold dismissed Scholl v. Illinois State Police, a suit by two Cook County residents filed in late May 2024 against the state police, the governor and the attorney general, finding the expressway plate readers do not trigger Fourth Amendment scrutiny. (Date: the Monday before an April 4, 2025 report.) (WBEZ / Chicago Sun-Times, June 3, 2024; Chicago Sun-Times (via NPR Illinois), April 4, 2025)
  5. June 11, 2025 The Secretary of State's office met with Mount Prospect police and audited the village's Flock data, finding a May 9, 2025 nationwide search by a Johnson County, Texas, sheriff's office and 262 searches citing immigration between mid-January and April 2025. (Village of Mount Prospect, date not shown; Associated Press (via 6abc), June 13, 2025)
  6. June 12, 2025 Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias asked the attorney general to review the Mount Prospect case and announced an audit system for compliance with the 2023 law. At his request Flock blocked 62 out-of-state agencies and began flagging 'abortion' and 'immigration' in search requests. (Associated Press (via 6abc), June 13, 2025)
  7. June 30, 2025 HB 3339 was signed, adding Lee, Ogle and Whiteside to the 20 counties already authorized for state police expressway cameras, allowing use in human-trafficking and involuntary-servitude investigations, and exempting camera images from FOIA. It took effect immediately. (Illinois Senate Democratic Caucus, June 30, 2025; Illinois State Police, Division of Criminal Investigation, 2026)
  8. Aug. 25, 2025 Giannoulias said an audit of a sample of 12 law enforcement agencies found Flock lacked proper data-sharing safeguards and had run a pilot giving U.S. Customs and Border Protection access to Illinois camera data. He ordered Flock to cut off that access; Flock paused its federal pilot programs nationwide. (NBC Chicago, Aug. 25, 2025; Capitol News Illinois, Aug. 27, 2025)
  9. Aug. 27, 2025 Capitol News Illinois counted about 90 Illinois police departments confirmed as Flock users; disclosures from 14 of them listed more than 461 Illinois agencies and 551 out-of-state agencies with access to their data. (Capitol News Illinois, Aug. 27, 2025)
  10. Sept. 5, 2025 Giannoulias reported that an audit found Forest Park police plate data from Motorola Solutions readers had been shared with federal immigration authorities, and directed Motorola to turn off sharing with federal agencies. (Forest Park Review, Sept. 5, 2025)
  11. Feb. 10, 2026 Rep. Kelly Cassidy introduced HB 5151, the Automated License Plate Recognition System Act, later sponsored by Rep. Nicolle Grasse. It would require police to delete plate data not tied to an investigation, court order or case within three days and would bar using the data to track people at protests, people seeking lawful health care, or for immigration enforcement. (Shaw Local, May 29, 2026)
  12. Sept. 29, 2026 A Seventh Circuit panel (Chief Judge Michael Brennan, Judges Rebecca Taibleson and Amy St. Eve) heard the appeal in the Scholl case. (Courthouse News Service, Sept. 29, 2026)

State agencies

Illinois State Police

Status
Using license-plate readers
Vendors
Motorola Solutions, Flock Safety
Cameras
808
808 installed statewide per the ISP transparency page (2026); Courthouse News reported 807, including 402 in Cook County (Sept. 2026). The state police pay Flock for access to its network but run no Flock cameras.
Contract
Motorola Solutions: · from June 28, 2024 · to Dec. 15, 2027 · approved by Illinois State Police June 28, 2024 · Motorola Solutions is the primary vendor (Vehicle Manager system); contract value not stated on the page. (Illinois State Police, Division of Criminal Investigation, 2026)
Contract
Flock Safety: about $50,000 year · Access to Flock data only; ISP operates no Flock cameras and shares no data with Flock, per Capitol News Illinois. (Capitol News Illinois, Aug. 27, 2025)
  1. Dec. 14, 2022 ISP and IDOT signed an intergovernmental agreement providing $22.5 million from the IDOT Road Fund; about 300 cameras were on Cook County expressways by December 2022. (Illinois State Police, Division of Criminal Investigation, 2026)
  2. June 30, 2025 FY2025 annual report: 160 cameras installed during the year (largest share, 54, in Peoria County); 2,759,896,140 detections, 75,760,878 hits and 469,787 inquiries. (Illinois State Police, 2025)
  3. July 2025 At least one site installed in each of the 21 counties named in law, per the ISP transparency page. (Illinois State Police, Division of Criminal Investigation, 2026)
  4. Feb. 2026 About $10.6 million appropriated for new installations in Bureau, Champaign, Grundy, Henry, Kendall, LaSalle, Madison, Rock Island and Winnebago counties. (Illinois State Police, Division of Criminal Investigation, 2026)
  5. June 30, 2026 FY2026 annual report: 190 cameras installed during the year (48 in Cook County), 3.38 billion detections, 94.8 million hits and 958,482 investigative searches; Cook County installation cost $1,710,529.00 and annual maintenance $531,552.31. (Illinois State Police, 2026)
Conflicts and open questions
  • Data kept up to 90 days, then deleted automatically (ISP transparency page).
  • ISP says sharing with federal agencies such as the FBI and HSI was previously in place and has been removed.
  • FY2026 report end date assumed as end of state fiscal year (June 30, 2026); the document states no period dates.
  • Flock is listed as a vendor only because ISP buys access to Flock's network (about $50,000 a year); ISP runs no Flock cameras (Capitol News Illinois).

From agency records.

Illinois State Toll Highway Authority

Status
Program documented, current use unconfirmed
Vendors
Vendor not named in source
Cameras
22
12 in Cook County and 10 in Winnebago County under the expressway camera program; no new installations reported in 2025-2026.
  1. 2022 The Tollway, working with ISP but outside the IDOT grant, installed 12 plate-reader cameras in Cook County and 10 in Winnebago County. ISP reports show no Tollway additions since December 2022. (Date inferred; the sources give no install date.) (Illinois State Police, Division of Criminal Investigation, 2026; Illinois State Police, 2026)
Conflicts and open questions
  • Listed on the ISP transparency page and in the FY2026 report (0 new installations). Whether the cameras remain in service is not stated.

From agency records.