Loves Park (IL) Police Department Automated License Plate Readers

The Loves Park Police Department uses automated license plate readers (“ALPR”).  ALPRs are high-speed cameras that scan their surroundings for vehicle license plates.  ALPR cameras can be fixed-location (e.g. mounted on poles) or vehicle-mounted. When an ALPR camera scans a license plate, it records an image of the plate called a “detection” or “plate scan.” The ALPR system’s software then uploads these images of license plates to a centralized database hosted and managed by a private ALPR database service provider. The detections in the database include the date, time, and location of the detection, as well as a photograph of the vehicle and its plate. Law enforcement agencies can enter license plate numbers into the database and the database will return a list of such all instances in which its ALPR cameras detected that plate. Law enforcement agencies can also elect to make their detections accessible to other law enforcement agencies. Law enforcement agencies can also create lists of wanted license plates (“hot lists”) in the database and the database will alert that agency of all future detections of that plate (“hits”) when they occur.  Even if a law enforcement agency does not operate its own ALPR cameras, it can still subscribe to a ALPR database service to conduct searches of detections or receive hits for vehicles of interest to their investigations. 

Vigilant Solutions is the most prolific provider of ALPR database access services for law enforcement.  Vigilant’s database of ALPR detections is called the National Vehicle Location Service (“NVLS”).  Vigilant’s law enforcement clients access this database via Vigilant’s software and online portal, called the Law Enforcement Archival Reporting Network (“LEARN”).  Vigilant, a subsidiary of Chicago-based Motorola Solutions, also produces and sells ALPR hardware.

In 2019, the Loves Park Police Department entered into a contract with Vigilant Solutions for the operation of ALPR cameras on Vigilant’s network and for access to Vigilant’s LEARN/NVLS database.[1]  LPPD paid $246,595 to Vigilant Solutions through Brite Computers for various ALPR cameras, other hardware, and services.[2]  LPPD also paid Vigilant $3,150 for six camera license keys (CLK) through mid-2020.[3]  A CLK is a user license to operate a single ALPR camera on Vigilant’s LEARN network.  In 2020, LPPD paid Vigilant an additional $2,025 to extend those CLKs through mid-2021.[4] In 2019, LPPD’s ALPR cameras recorded 8,569,299 detections, of which 14,090 were hits for a hit rate of 0.16%.[5]  LPPD shares and receives detection data and hot lists with numerous other law enforcement agencies, including U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”).[6] In March 2019 ACLU of Illinois criticized the practice of local law enforcement sharing its ALPR data with ICE and called on several police agencies to end this practice.[7]  LPPD has an official ALPR policy.[8]  In 2019, LPPD submitted 202 detection browsing requests (searches for instances in which an ALPR camera detected a specific plate) to the LEARN/NVLS database.[9]  LPPD utilized the LEARN/NVLS database extensively in 2019 and the full data set is available upon request.

[1] Loves Park-Vigilant Solutions Enterprise Service Agreement 2019, available at: https://beta.documentcloud.org/documents/20438178-loves-park-il-police-alpr-vigilant-solutions-enterprise-service-agreement

[2] Loves Park Vigilant Solutions Invoices 2019-2020, available at: https://beta.documentcloud.org/documents/20438180-loves-park-il-police-alpr-invoices-2020

[3] Id.

[4] Id.

[5] Loves Park Hit Ratio Report 2019, available at https://beta.documentcloud.org/documents/20438179-loves-park-il-police-alprhit-ratio-2019  

[6] Loves Park LEARN Agency Data Sharing Report 2020, available at: https://beta.documentcloud.org/documents/20438177-loves-park-il-police-alpr-agency-sharing-2020

[7] See, https://www.aclu-il.org/en/press-releases/ice-targeting-immigrants-based-automatic-license-plate-reader-alpr-data-supplied  

[8] Loves Park Police Department General Order Number SOP 0038, available at: https://beta.documentcloud.org/documents/20438181-loves-park-il-police-alpr-policy

[9] Loves Park ALPR Viewed Records Report 2019, available at: https://beta.documentcloud.org/documents/20438245-loves-park-il-police-alpr-viewed-records-2019