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SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) — The Illinois secretary of state on Thursday asked for an investigation into a suburban Chicago police department after learning that it violated state law by sharing data from automatic license-plate readers with a Texas sheriff seeking a woman who had an abortion.
Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias asked the attorney general to review the matter. He also is creating an audit system to ensure police departments don’t run afoul of a 2023 law banning the distribution of license-plate data to track women seeking abortions or to find undocumented immigrants.
The incident underscores the fears that led to the law: In particular, that states which restricted abortion access after Roe v. Wade was overturned would use the technology to follow and possibly prosecute women seeking the procedure by crossing into Illinois, where it is readily available.
“License plate readers can serve as an important tool for law enforcement, but these cameras must be regulated so they aren’t abused for surveillance, tracking the data of innocent people or criminalizing lawful behavior,” the Democrat said in a statement.
Data on what states have an Illinois-style prohibition on license-plate data sharing are not readily available. However, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, Illinois is one of 22 states and the District of Columbia that have shield laws protecting abortion patients and providers from criminal or civil action from states that restrict the procedure.
An expert in privacy law, however, said that as long as states share the data, there will be misuse. That is because the process relies on police departments telling the truth about why they want the information, said Albert Fox Cahn, executive director of the New York-based Surveillance Technology Oversight Project.
“We’re basically just asking cops to pinky-swear that they won’t misuse this data and then act shocked when they do,” Cahn said.
According to Giannoulias, police in Mount Prospect, 24 miles (39 kilometers) northwest of Chicago, shared license-plate data with the sheriff in Johnson County, Texas, who was looking for a woman whose family was worried because she had undergone a self-administered abortion.
Giannoulias says Mount Prospect also shared data outside of Illinois on undocumented immigrants, in violation of the law. Between mid-January and April, there were 262 searches on immigration-related matters in Mount Prospect alone, he said.
Telephone and email messages were left for Mount Prospect Police Chief Michael Eterno. Violations by Mount Prospect could result in loss of state funding, deputy Secretary of State Scott Burnham said.
The incident was revealed by a website called 404 Media, which reported that the Texas sheriff sent a nationwide request for data from 83,000 cameras operated by the private company Flock Safety, including those in Mount Prospect.
At Giannoulias’ request, Flock Safety blocked access to 62 out-of-state agencies that have sought data related to abortion or immigration, Burnham said. The company also set up a program to flag the terms “abortion” and “immigration” in requests for access and deny those applications.
Police agencies will also be required to comply with audits by the secretary of state to mark trends or upticks in certain requests, Burnham said.
The Flock Safety cameras take photos of passing license plates thousands of times a day. The technology, called Automatic License Plate Recognition, is helpful in tracking stolen vehicles or carjackings, missing persons and in other authorized cases.
The technology allows police agencies to read thousands of license plates per minute from images captured by cameras along roadways.
The first-in-the-nation law restricting the reasons for sharing data, which Giannoulias pushed, was one of several pieces of legislation Democrats who control the Illinois General Assembly adopted as lawmakers in the post-Roe v. Wade world strengthened abortion’s availability and accessibility.
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