>> Automatic license plate readers, especially cameras from the maker Flock, are causing controversy nationwide.

Billions of vehicles are scanned every month, including some read by thousands of cameras in the Chicago area.

Advocates say the plate readers help law enforcement find crime suspects.

But critics have concerns over privacy and misuse of the data.

Joining us to talk more about this are Bianca director of communications and public policy at the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois.

And Christian Hamm and professor of computer science at Northwestern University.

We also invited several law enforcement agencies and associations but have not heard back.

Gentlemen, thanks to the 2 of you for joining us.

Good to be here.

Christian.

Explain this technology thanks.

Explain this technology for us.

What exactly do flock cameras do?

>> I if they take pictures, they're they they're they have an ongoing.

They take an ongoing stream images triggered to some extent by movement.

But what they do is they gather that they got data and they do it now says the allows the system to tell you what car you're looking at, what the license plate is, what the make and model is.

It doesn't to 5 people, but it doesn't.

Dana, cars, they're driving down to a very very high level of precision.

And the thing that's powerful about it is, of course, that because I'm have them situated you know, it's area I can literally track someone out there driving or as they have driven.

And that's the that's the power, the strength and the danger of the system.

>> And it scans pretty much every car that that that it passes, right, that that can be read by that camera.

Oh, yeah, So it mean it's it's like any, it's like any other.

>> Sort of ongoing surveillance summit sometimes triggered by motion, sometimes was on.

But it's it's it's too to recognize vehicles and the features of vehicles that matter again make model color license plate.

Then the important thing to understand is that even though the data it collects might seem benign.

There's other data that can be connected to it.

That is if you know a license plate, you know the license plate of the car of a car.

You probably know who the driver as who the owner is.

You probably know what the fit that the but they look like you might be able to connect it to a whole bunch of other things having to do with what the what the state really already knows about us.

All right.

And that's the that's the place where it is.

>> That's okay.

So, Ed, let's get into that.

You know, these cameras have been around for some years, right?

I know that the Illinois State Police using a different manufacturer for some time, for example, by the recent controversy.

>> I think there's 2 reasons.

So bees cameras mainly were sold like many surveillance systems as being answer to enhance public safety.

What we haven't really seen in the last few years is transparency to see whether or not they're actually meeting those promises, whether or not the cameras themselves are hoping in terms of providing public safety.

But what has become very obvious over the last I would say said, you know, maybe 18 months to 2 years is that the cameras are rife for abuse.

They are right for being used for people using them to identify, for example, or for for someone to search for, say a former love interest.

As we've seen recently, an officer literally searching up a license plate more than 1000 times because it became, you know, with associated with someone with whom they wanted to or had had a relationship.

We've seen the cameras used in and around, for example, no kings rallies in some places around the country.

And we've even seen request for the camera data.

You know, as the professor pointed out to know where people move, we've seen that day to be requested from other states when people came here to seek lawful health care in Illinois, that is it lawful in their states.

That's not what we were promised with these cameras.

And I think that's the reason they're starting to be, you know, question by people both, you know, of all political parties and really, of all sort of partisan strikes and specifically that health care that you're referring to is people who come to Illinois seeking an abortion from right where it is not legal, correct?

>> Because there are also concerns about the violation of 4th Amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizure on because if a law enforcement agency should, you know, see a plate and then run that plate to find out if there are any warrants, whatever.

>> What are what are constitutional concerns around us?

So the cat, the basic constitutional concern is and I think, again, I want to go back to what Professor Hammond said.

It is recording every single vehicle that's present in a particular place.

>> And it's creating a tracking of where that vehicle was at a particular day and the particular time.

And there is no evidence at the time that is collecting and storing that information that someone is involved in any kind of criminal activity, let alone violent criminal activity.

And so the concern is, is that then when you are able to go back and search that data and be able to track, for example, where someone wet that you're you're able to essentially follow someone track them and look at what they're doing without any sort of probable cause without a warrant or without any of that, because the usual kinds of court oversight that we would really demand under our constitutional system.

>> Christian just mentioned this, there have been several recent incidents where police officers misuse the readers for personal reasons, stalking a former or stalking ex or a former boss, for example, what are some of the safeguards that should be in place to ensure that this doesn't happen?

>> What I think is that there's a great there's a great word here that can be used and that is you don't want the use of this, this technology or the date associated to be unwarranted, which is to say you want a warrant I mean, there aren't there got to be very specific reasons for using the technology and what happens is that it's so easy to use and so easy to access.

And it's Scott such scale all you certainly have all the abuses having to do with stalking and ex-girlfriends and looking at your wanted to find out, you know, yours, maybe your spouse's behavior.

So those abuses are right there ready for us.

And that's the first thing to get rid of those.

It's like this like has really strong, strong mandated regulation around that.

But there's also this odd thing of this is the kind of data we it sounds like it's normal data, but it's a kind of data we don't know about any more.

And that is if I can, if I can track behavior across a month, it might turn out that they're constantly going to a neighborhood.

And if I'm up, I'm if I've got crime on my mind that I'm thinking, oh, they're there.

They might be going there to commit a crime or had been committing crimes or if there was a crime there.

I can look at these people.

But that's not the behavior at all.

It's just somebody maybe going to the grocery store every day or picking up, you know, picking up a newspaper.

mean, that we don't know how to interpret the patterns that we're seeing.

And and our interpretation immediately goes to my job is to find criminals.

I'm gonna use this to find criminals.

Even though there might absolutely no connection between a crime and these behaviors.

And that's a huge danger.

And that is we we get confused because we've got data ahead of us.

We've gotten our hands that somehow it's meaningful for us and it might not be at all.

And that's I think a huge danger.

didn't.

I go ahead.

Go ahead, Professor.

I mean, one thing for me, though, is making sure that we understand this is not a technology problem so much this is a there's a huge regulatory that is we have to draw the lines.

in terms of utilization, but out tell you, if I if one of my kids vanished, I want every single one of those images I tracked with par I mean the yet But I want to up.

I don't Head back.

>> But you don't want to track He would want to find your did, of course, which is different.

You know, when you're looking for a minor, you're you're going to add about the regulatory can tonight.

I think that's right.

Because there's there's sort of 3 things, first of all, in many localities locations.

These cameras were deployed without any public discussion without any dialogue about how they would be used about what kind of crimes they would be used for and who would have access to.

So that's the first thing is creating transparency around this second, their walk to actually be a crime.

There ought to be limits on the kinds of crimes that can be search.

And then the 3rd, the second part of that is that there ought to be a very limited number of people who can have access to that data.

And 3rd, if there are violations, it just the way the professor was talking about and drawing those lines.

Have to be accountability for that.

You know, we're hearing so much about this right now and about, you know, officers being suspended or being, you know, being disciplined or whatever.

But that that that for tense, that this is the first time we've known about this and to have this kind of powerful tool in the hands of local law enforcement officials.

We ought to have as a community, an annual or semi-annual audit in which they were.

take a look at who's searching for what and what's the outcome?

You know, the question is really, is any of this actually benefiting us in terms of terms of being more say, well, it to that point, does it does the data show and in about 30 seconds data show us that this keeps us The thing is, is that every time the cameras are cited as something that's helped to resolve a crime, usually there some other factor that was involved as well.

And so a real audit of this is the kind of thing that the public could put its trust.

And in terms of whether or not these cameras are actually benefiting us for all of the problems that the professor is identified.

Okay.

Probably not the last time