As public bodies in Champaign County, such as the City of Urbana, City of Champaign, the Champaign Sherriff’s Office, and the University of Illinois continue to consider and implement automatic license plate readers (ALPRs), the issue of efficacy is constantly raised.
Proponents of ALPRs have spouted numerous claims about their success rate at solving murders in nearby towns. Claims of solving one or more shootings in Rantoul have been made in virtually every pro-ALPR article or presentation.
ALPR company Flock Safety has also loudly advertised to both the City of Urbana and the City of Champaign that their access to the ALPR database would be logged by user and the reason for the access, and that the efficacy of the system could thereby be reviewed on a regular basis. Urbana Police Chief Bryant Seraphin repeated such a claim himself in October:
On November 15th, 2021 Check CU sent a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the Village of Rantoul, seeking records related to their ALPRs being used to effect an arrest. Rantoul Attorney David Wesner (also City Attorney for Urbana) unlawfully delayed his response by a month.
On December 16th, Wesner finally issued a response to the FOIA request, but provided no records. Instead, Wesner explained that searching for responsive records would be extremely resource intensive:
“There is no independent means with which to track records based upon the nature of certain information that may be obtained or used within an investigation, ie ALPR information.”
Such a response would seem to be in conflict with the advertisements of Flock Safety. Even Rantoul’s ALPR policy manual says that a log should be kept of how the ALPRs are being used:
“All ALPR data downloaded to the mobile workstation and server shall be accessible only through a login/password protected system capable of documenting all access of information by name, date, time, and reason for the search.”
The Policy also says that “ALPR system audits should be conducted on a regular basis.”
Unless Rantoul officials are purposefully trying to make it difficult to attain public records, it seems that the Flock Safety ALPR system and logging does not actually have any means for reviewing their efficacy or auditing their use.
Note: this article was updated after publishing to add the Bryant Seraphin video