License plate camera company halts cooperation with federal agencies
among investigation concerns
[August 26, 2025]
By JOHN O'CONNOR
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) — One of the nation's leading operators of
automated license-plate reading systems announced Monday it has paused
its operations with federal agencies because of confusion and concern —
including in Illinois — about the purpose of their investigations.
Flock Safety, whose cameras are mounted in more than 4,000 communities
nationwide, put a hold last week on pilot programs with the Department
of Homeland Security's Customs and Border Protection and its law
enforcement arm, Homeland Security Investigations, according to a
statement by its founder and CEO, Garrett Langley.
Among officials in other jurisdictions, Illinois Secretary of State
Alexi Giannoulias raised concerns. He announced Monday that an audit
found Customs and Border Protection had accessed Illinois data, although
he didn't say that the agency was seeking immigration-related
information. A 2023 law the Democrat pushed bars sharing license plate
data with police investigating out-of-state abortions or undocumented
immigrants.
“This sharing of license plate data of motorists who drive on Illinois
roads is a clear violation of the state law," Giannoulias said in a
statement. "This law, passed two years ago, aimed to strengthen how data
is shared and prevent this exact thing from happening,”
Flock Safety's cameras capture billions of photos of license plates each
month. However, it doesn't own that data. The local agencies in whose
jurisdictions the cameras are located do, and they're the ones who
receive inquiries from other law enforcement agencies.
Langley said the company had initiated pilot programs with Customs and
Border Protection and Homeland Security Investigations to help combat
human trafficking and fentanyl distribution. The company is unaware of
any immigration-related searches the agencies made, but Langley said
parameters were unclear.
“We clearly communicated poorly. We also didn’t create distinct
permissions and protocols in the Flock system to ensure local compliance
for federal agency users,” Langley said.
[to top of second column]
|
In this Oct. 18, 2010 file photo, then-Illinois Democratic U.S.
Senate candidate Alexi Giannoulias speaks during an interview with
the Associated Press in Chicago. (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green, File)
The revelation comes two months after Giannoulias announced that
police in the Chicago suburb of Mount Prospect had shared data with
a Texas sheriff who was seeking a missing woman. The woman’s family
was worried because she had undergone a self-administered abortion.
Although the sheriff in Johnson County, Texas, said he was simply
trying to help the family locate the woman, Giannoulias demanded
more vigilance from Flock Safety because of the abortion connection.
In addition to halting the pilot programs, Flock has tweaked its
system so that federal inquiries are clearly identified as such. And
federal agencies will no longer be able to make blanket national or
even statewide searches, but only one-on-one searches with
particular police agencies.
Asked when the federal agency had accessed Illinois data, a
Giannoulias spokesperson said the investigation was ongoing.
After the June incident, Flock Safety responded to Giannoulias'
request that its system reject searches that includes terms such as
“abortion,” “immigration” or “ICE” (for Immigration and Customs
Enforcement). Those flag terms have been in effect since late June,
a Flock Safety spokesperson said.
All contents © copyright 2025 Associated Press. All rights reserved
 |
