Police departments in McLean County that use automatic license plate reading cameras [ALPRs] say none of their data has been shared with federal immigration officers.
This comes after Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias said camera company Flock Safety shared data with those federal agencies.
Officer Brad Park with the Normal Police Department said the department does not share its data with any agency outside of Illinois.
“We only share that information with agencies that are approved by the chief, and currently we are only sharing those with about 39 approved agencies within the state of Illinois,” he said, adding Normal police regularly audit officers' use of the cameras to ensure the images are only being used in criminal investigations.
“We have to take confidence in the program we use for our ALPR that their database is going to stay restricted to law enforcement use only,” Park said.
The department’s policy, which is similar to that of the Bloomington Police Department, bans employees from releasing “any specific information obtained by ALPR devices that would be considered a personal privacy issue, or create the appearance of one, to non-law enforcement personnel unless required by law.”
Normal’s ALPR policy is scheduled for reevaluation in June 2026.
When Bloomington Police, and later Normal Police, purchased the cameras in 2022, the American Civil Liberties Union [ACLU] raised concerns about privacy and called for policies that protect the data from being shared.
In a recent interview on WGLT, Ed Yohnka from ACLU Illinois called on police departments to demonstrate the cameras are a necessary tool for law enforcement.
“Let’s actually do a detailed study, and when you hear a murder was resolved, was the camera the thing that did it, or was it some other piece of information and the camera confirmed it?” Yohnka said. “Like knowing that in some detail and knowing how efficient and effective these cameras actually are, [is it] something that every community ought to do.”
Bloomington Assistant Police Chief Chad Wamsley said during the city’s Public Safety and Community Relations Board [PSCRB] meeting last week the cameras helped capture a 16-year-old in a 2024 shooting and make an arrest in a recent homicide case in under an hour.
“It was our ALPRs that pretty much solved that entire case,” Wamsley said. “They are instrumental in solving crimes.”
BPD also said the agency is not aware of any of its data being shared with federal agencies that deal with immigration.
The LeRoy Police Department already had several ALPR cameras installed when it got permission from McLean County to add them along LeRoy-Lexington Road in 2023.
Police Chief Jason Williamson said he’s not aware of any of his department’s data being used for immigration enforcement.
"My own internal auditing found no access by ICE or Customs and Border Patrol,” Williamson said in an email.
Williamson said the cameras have been especially helpful in stolen vehicle cases. He referenced one example in September 2024 when LeRoy Police captured a man wanted in Indiana on felony domestic battery charges. Williamson said police in Indiana were alerted by the Flock cameras to the vehicle being spotted in LeRoy.
“The Flock ALPR system has proven very useful in law enforcement investigations, especially due to the networking of agencies,” Williamson said.
When contacted by WGLT, Flock declined to provide a list of law enforcement agencies and communities that use its license plate reading cameras.
Flock CEO Garrett Langley acknowledged in a statement the company engaged in “limited pilots with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection [CBP] and Homeland Security Investigations [HIS], to assist those agencies in combating human trafficking and fentanyl distribution.”
Flock said it has stopped that data sharing with federal immigration officers and that the company also inadvertently gave inaccurate information.
“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.
