By Mallory Mankin, Staff Writer
Anthony Spears, a single father in Warrenville, was outside his home when he spotted a new security camera angled toward his yard. Curious about its purpose, he performed an image search, and upon realizing that it was a Flock camera, said he was utterly repulsed.
“The idea of having them as part of a national network that’s also part of a centralized database that’s powered by AI is something fundamentally different from your regular everyday cameras,” he said.
Flock cameras, or automatic license plate readers (ALPR), have become the subject of a national debate over privacy, data security and police use of surveillance technology. Flock technology has the capability to take pictures of license plates and basic vehicle features, which law enforcement uses to follow, find and eventually prosecute criminals.
Wheaton started installing these cameras in 2023, at the approval of the city council. There are now 64 ALPR cameras throughout the city. What appears to be a Flock camera is located near the Terrace Apartments: between the train tracks and Stoddard Avenue.
The Wheaton Police Department says this technology has been successfully used to apprehend thieves and find missing persons.
Spears, who oversees seven ACE Hardware stores, started a Facebook group called DeFlock DuPage, which has 590 members, in response to the camera installations. The group is modeled after the national movement DeFlock America, whose Facebook group has more than 790,000 members.
He formed the group to provide a centralized place for residents to organize and share information about the cameras. The group encourages residents to contact city councils, political candidates and legislators. Spears said local campaigns surrounding Flock cameras have been more successful than national efforts, as they have been able to make the issue part of the upcoming elections.
“It’s actually a perfect time for us to really be addressing these because local campaigns are beginning to petition for re-election,” he said. “We are discussing these Flock cameras having the leverage of an election to force them to make decisions.”
Joseph Kruse is a 3/2 nursing student at Aurora University. He spent his first three years of undergrad at Wheaton and is now at Aurora for the latter two years of nursing school. He said that his largest concern was not the presence of the cameras themselves, but the implications of the technology on privacy.
“Security cameras are a good thing. Tools that police can use to solve crimes are a good thing,” he said. “This is bordering on mass surveillance.”
Kruse compared these cameras to right to privacy cases heard by the Supreme Court, such as Carpenter v. U.S., which determined that the government’s warrantless search and seizure of cell phone records was a breach of the Fourth Amendment. He speculated whether ALPR technology could stand up in court.
He also raised concerns about Flock being a third-party company, and the lack of oversight surrounding its access to surveillance data.
“The government has checks and balances, and there are ways we can keep the government accountable with what they’re doing with our data and how they’re treating citizens,” he said. “If they’re a third party or a company, they don’t have those same ways to keep them in line and make sure that they’re not doing things they shouldn’t with our data.”
Wheaton Police Chief Princeton Youker has had calls and emails from concerned residents this summer about Flock cameras. In response, he sat down with citizens and answered their questions about how the cameras work, how his department uses the technology and how the data collected by the camera is secured.
In an interview with the Record, he explained that the Flock system is designed to only release data to law enforcement when it is explicitly requested. If a piece of data is not searched for, it is automatically deleted after 30 days.
“This discussion about a master data database out there that somebody can download data from is simply not the truth,” he said.
When asked about reports of police abuse, such as police officers using the technology to stalk citizens, Chief Youker responded that any abuse of a tool entrusted to law enforcement, be it ALPRs or firearms, should result in consequences.
“Police officers are entrusted with a lot of responsibility and a lot of authority by the communities that they serve,” he said. “If an officer misuses any of that stuff or violates the trust of their community, they obviously should be held accountable.”
He also brought up the regular audits that the Wheaton Police Department conducts on all the tools the officers are charged with using.
“Not only do we audit our ALPR uses by our officers, but we are also auditing our body-worn cameras, our squad videos, whether or not they have a positive or negative interaction randomly with a citizen or a resident,” he said.
Chief Youker said he has not found any officers abusing their authority of accessing ALPR technology in the Wheaton Police Department.
Still, Spears remains worried about the potential misuse of the ALPR technology, as he believes there is little government oversight of the technology.
“It’s too much power in the hands of too few,” he said. “We only have to trust the police to say that they’re not being abused until we happen to fall victim to it.”
