{"id":795204,"date":"2026-05-14T06:18:16","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T06:18:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/795204\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T06:18:16","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T06:18:16","slug":"cook-county-sheriffs-license-plate-reader-deal-draws-opposition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/795204\/","title":{"rendered":"Cook County sheriff\u2019s license plate reader deal draws opposition"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart\u2019s<\/a> push to expand the network of automatic license plate readers under his control prompted hours of debate and opposition from county commissioners Wednesday concerned about misuse of data and exploited loopholes.<\/p>\n

While they eventually advanced that deal to a final vote Thursday, commissioners deferred another proposed contract from Dart that drew strong opposition from various community groups, to fund artificial intelligence-fueled video surveillance at the Cook County Jail.<\/p>\n

Dart requested approval for a $1.12 million deal with Safeware for the use of Briefcam, video software powered by artificial intelligence. It is supposed to use facial recognition technology to \u201cdetect various types of potential security breaches throughout the Department of Corrections,\u201d according to the proposed contract legislation.<\/p>\n

In the days ahead of Wednesday\u2019s scheduled vote, the Illinois Network for Pretrial Justice and 80 community, faith and policy organizations urged commissioners to hit pause and fix other health and safety issues at the jail before turning to AI that might trigger false positives or privacy violations.<\/p>\n

Recent deaths at the jail because of a failure of corrections staff to provide timely medical care during drug overdoses, guards being unable to respond quickly enough to fights because they are \u201ccross watching\u201d \u2014 having one officer supervise two tiers on the same shift \u2014 and \u201cviolence from sheriff\u2019s deputies and other incarcerated people\u201d deserve oversight, the groups argue. But that oversight should come from people, not artificial intelligence, they say.<\/p>\n

Commissioner Jessica Vasquez requested the AI proposal be deferred, likely putting off consideration for at least one month.<\/p>\n

\"CommissionerCommissioner Jessica V\u00e1squez, right, asks questions about license plate readers and the technology used to manage them during the Criminal Justice Committee portion of the Cook County Board of Commissioners meeting on May 13, 2026. (Stacey Wescott\/Chicago Tribune)<\/p>\n

A separate $900,000 contract for additional license plate readers from Insight Public Sector also drew pushback, but ultimately passed. The 145 total readers \u2014 including the 71 already deployed \u2014 would be used \u201cas part of multiple strategic initiatives to address and reduce auto theft and related incidents\u201d in the sheriff\u2019s office\u2019s patrol areas.<\/p>\n

Several commissioners said they view Flock Group, which is part of the contract, as a \u201cbad actor.\u201d<\/p>\n

The latest proposal is an expansion of an emergency contract first awarded in 2022 with Flock Group to respond to an uptick in carjackings, car thefts and shootings.<\/p>\n

The initial scope included 25 cameras and access to its cloud platform. Insight obtains its services through a national government purchasing cooperative, which uses Flock.<\/p>\n

Flock has drawn scrutiny nationally for its work with federal immigration agencies, as well as a case in which an out-of-state police department used Flock license plate reader data to track a woman who had an abortion.<\/p>\n

And Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias has alleged Flock improperly shared Illinois data from its broad network of license plate readers with U.S. Customs and Border Patrol, a violation of a 2023 Illinois law explicitly barring outside law enforcement from using license plate reader data \u201cto track or penalize individuals seeking abortion care or criminalize a person\u2019s immigration status.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe goal that the sheriff\u2019s office has to make our community safer, to react proactively \u2026 is incredibly important, but when we have vendors who have been on the record violating state law \u2026 I think we have an oversight issue with this vendor, I think this vendor is not a good actor,\u201d Vasquez said Wednesday during a meeting of the Criminal Justice Committee.<\/p>\n

Vasquez and fellow progressive Commissioners Alma Anaya and Tara Stamps all voted no after grilling Dart\u2019s staff about potential loopholes to those data protections, how ever-changing tech capabilities would be monitored and how the contract was awarded. They requested regular monitoring reports, copies of the service agreement with Flock, and copies of the agreements other local agencies sign with the sheriff to access the network of cameras.<\/p>\n

Thirteen other commissioners voted in favor after more than two hours of debate, setting up the contract for approval at Thursday\u2019s board meeting.<\/p>\n

\"JasonJason Hernandez, front left, the sheriff’s head of intergovernmental affairs, and Michael Halpin, technology counsel, answer questions about license plate readers and the technology used to manage them during the Criminal Justice Committee portion of the Cook County Board meeting on May 13, 2026, in Chicago. (Stacey Wescott\/Chicago Tribune)<\/p>\n

During the committee debate, representatives for the sheriff said they went to great lengths to strengthen data protections in the license plate reader contract. The technology \u201cadvances public safety while operating within some of the strictest guard rails and accountability measures in law enforcement,\u201d said Jason Hernandez, Dart\u2019s head of intergovernmental affairs, adding the office has a \u201czero tolerance policy\u201d around misuses of data as part of its user agreement with Flock.<\/p>\n

Outside of administrative access \u2014 like sticking to the county\u2019s 30-day deletion policy \u2014 the company can\u2019t use, share or make reports using county data without explicit written consent.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe system does not contain facial recognition, biometric identification, does not do predictive policing or autonomous enforcement activities,\u201d Hernandez said. \u201cIt can\u2019t access personal communications.\u201d<\/p>\n

Both the sheriff\u2019s office and several suburban police leaders said the readers were essential to picking up stolen cars, missing people or fugitives.<\/p>\n

Sheriff\u2019s office leaders said 210 agencies have access to sheriff\u2019s license plate reader data.<\/p>\n

In a written public statement, William Alexander, chief of the Posen Police Department, described the readers as \u201cone of the most effective force-multipliers we have ever seen,\u201d and a \u201csilver bullet\u201d that has helped solve \u201cmurders, violent carjackings, burglaries, and shootings \u2026 When a suspect flees a shooting in one town and enters another, our ability to share real-time data allows us to track that vehicle across municipal lines. It turns a fragmented map into a unified shield.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart\u2019s push to expand the network of automatic license plate readers under his control…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":795205,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5124],"tags":[960,14677,5404,14679,14680,5295,14720,14682,14683,14684,11612,14686,5386,1818,1370,50,80],"class_list":["post-795204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-chicago","tag-chicago","tag-chicago-heights","tag-cook-county","tag-country-club-hills","tag-countryside","tag-crime-and-public-safety","tag-daily-southtown","tag-des-plaines","tag-dolton","tag-elgin","tag-evanston","tag-franklin-park","tag-il","tag-illinois","tag-latest-headlines","tag-news","tag-politics"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116571480114384997","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/795204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=795204"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/795204\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/795205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=795204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=795204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=795204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}