City of Evanston, Illinois, to protect privacy of abortion, gender-care patients by limiting license plate reader tech

CHICAGO — In response to reports of Texas officials using automatic license plate reading technology to track a woman who traveled to Illinois for an abortion, Evanston officials passed an ordinance that would limit data sharing in similar cases to protect the privacy of individuals seeking sensitive health care procedures.

The Evanston City Council introduced its Health Data Protection Ordinance at its June 23 meeting to protect people seeking reproductive care or gender-affirming surgery in Evanston from being tracked and having their privacy violated. While the ordinance focuses on health care, it could also potentially prevent federal officials from tracking immigrants, Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss observed. The Evanston Police Department uses license plate reading technology from Flock Safety, which also manages license plate readers for police departments in Mount Prospect and many other Illinois municipalities.

Flock uses cameras to read license plates and logs the data for 30 days. It can be accessed by out-of-state law enforcement agencies with access to Flock on an opt-in basis, according to Evanston Police Chief Schenita Stewart.

Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias said in a news release that his office is investigating the technology and company after Mount Prospect’s Flock license plate readers were used by Texas officials.

Illinois law bars license plate reading technology to aid federal agencies to track undocumented immigrants and for out-of-state agencies to use the technology to track those who seek abortions and gender-affirming surgery.

Evanston Police Sergeant Tom Giese, who manages EPD’s license plate reader system, said the technology makes Evanston safer and has contributed to arrests ranging from hit-and-runs to murders.

Stewart said according to Flock, the technology has followed Illinois law in Evanston.

Nonetheless, Stewart said the police department has temporarily removed itself from the national opt-in look-up tool.

Mayor Daniel Biss, an advocate for the proposed ordinance, said he anticipates Illinois, including Evanston, will continue to be a destination for those seeking abortions and gender- affirming surgery as bans have cropped up for both practices in nearby states.

City Councilmembers Jonathan Nieuwsma and Juan Geracaris, along with Biss, spoke to reporters before the City Council meeting to answer questions about the ordinance.

“We don’t have illusions about what role we do and don’t play as a municipal government, but we also feel a really acute urgency to do whatever we can,” Biss said.

Biss said before the ordinance’s introduction that out-of-state agencies have not asked to use Evanston’s license plate readers to monitor people who come to Illinois seeking health care that is outlawed in their home state. Nevertheless, he said he didn’t want to wait for it to happen to pass an ordinance against it.

“This is what’s coming,” Biss said. “What I have learned is that if you wait for the bad thing to happen and then try to retroactively prohibit it — not only do you not solve the one individual problem of the bad thing that happened — but also you’ve allowed a bad habit to form, which is really, really dangerous.”

Another Evanston media outlet reported that out-of-state police agencies have tapped into Flock’s national look-up tool to conduct seven searches related to immigration including Evanston and elsewhere.

The practice troubled several members on the dais.

“I’m not comfortable with this… what I’ve learned so far has not given me the comfort that I need,” Biss said.

Giese said Flock’s national look-up tool has assisted the department in the past when criminal suspects have fled the immediate area, and the department’s ability to use the look-up tool is contingent on EPD sharing its data.

“The national look-up is not an actual search,” Giese said. “Flock calls it a ping. So it’s taking a specific license plate, running it across every camera and then Flock will be like, ‘All right, it hit in this town, in this state.'”

“Yeah, that’s what I’m scared of,” Biss said. “That’s the exact thing that I think, ‘Oh my God, why would we ever dream of doing that?'”

“From my experience, the national look-up tool has been very beneficial for us as a law enforcement agency for our operations,” Giese replied. “I totally understand the concern that you bring up with it. But by eliminating it and by no longer subscribing to that, we’re just focusing on the state now.”

“After discussions with several surrounding agencies, although there was misuse, it was a very small amount of misuse compared to the daily usage of Flock… less than 1% of misuse,” Giese said.

Biss expressed concern about the possibility of that misuse happening in Evanston. “Maybe just to give you some tactical advice in convincing me in the future, every time you say it’s only a few examples, you move me further away from you, dramatically,” he said.

“If our attitude is like, eh, we’ll just let a few instances slip by where we’re helping ICE whisk people off the street, I’m done,” Biss said.

Stewart disagreed with that assessment. “That would be your opinion. I don’t think we’ve shown you as an agency that’s our attitude. We’ve disabled (the national opt-in lookup tool).”

“Right. OK,” Biss said.

Flock’s contract is active through 2028, Giese said in response to a question from City Councilmember Bobby Burns.

Corporation Counsel Alexandra Ruggie said to her knowledge, Flock has not done anything to violate its contract with Evanston which would allow the contract to be terminated early.