Topline
A Georgia researcher’s public records request has revealed that the police department in the small Chicago suburb of Schaumburg is sharing its automated license plate reader data with more than 400 Illinois law enforcement and government agencies—a finding that comes as public debate over the mass surveillance of Flock and other plate-reader networks intensifies across the country.
Key Facts
Jason Hunyar, an open-records researcher whose efforts have been credited with helping to power the “Have I Been Flocked?” website, recently obtained a data-sharing report listing more than 400 organizations with access to Schaumburg’s Vigilant/Motorola LEARN network.
Those agencies—spanning municipal police departments, county sheriffs, university campus police, railroad police, park districts and state agencies—have access to data grabbed by the LEARN network cameras including vehicle plates, location and timestamps.
Schaumburg’s data is also available to some non-traditional law enforcement recipients including the Illinois attorney general, Cook County state’s attorney’s office, Norfolk Southern Railroad, Harper Community College and several public and private universities…