AUTOMATED LICENSE PLATE READER - TRANSPARENCY PAGE

OVERVIEW

On February 4, 2019, United States Postal Service worker, Tamara Clayton, was traveling on I-57 and Cicero Avenue when she was fatally shot. This unfortunate expressway shooting sparked a movement within the community, Illinois State Police (ISP), Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT), local police agencies, and the Governor's office. On January 1, 2020, the Tamara Clayton Expressway Camera Act was enacted. IDOT provided the ISP with a grant to purchase automated license plate reader (ALPR) cameras and equipment to help investigate expressway shootings. The cameras are authorized to be used in the investigations of offenses involving vehicular hijackings, aggravated vehicular hijackings, terrorism, motor vehicle theft, or any forcible felony, including, but not limited to, offenses involving the use of a firearm; to detect expressway hazards, and highway conditions; and to facilitate highway safety and incident management. By December 2022, almost 300 cameras were installed on every expressway within Cook County (I-90 Kennedy, I-290 Eisenhower, I-55 Stevenson, I-94 Dan Ryan, the Bishop Ford, and I-57). Each location was strategically placed in high violent crime areas where shootings, aggravated vehicular hijackings, or firearm trafficking occurred.

Due to the program's success, on June 6, 2022, Governor J.B. Pritzker signed an extension of the Tamara Clayton Act, allowing cameras to be installed in 21 more counties in Illinois and on DuSable Lake Shore Drive in Chicago. The IDOT Road Fund provided $20 million dollars from the grant which was used to purchase more cameras, equipment, and installations. The Illinois State Toll Highway Authority also partnered with the ISP to install ALPRs in strategic tollway locations. They installed 12 cameras in Cook County and 10 cameras in Winnebago County. These purchases were outside the grant funding provided by IDOT.

TAMARA CLAYTON 2.0

On December 14, 2022, ISP and IDOT entered into an Intergovernmental Agreement (IGA) reference the expansion of the Tamara Clayton Act. This IGA specifies each agency's roles in the Illinois ALPR project expansion. As directed by the Illinois State Legislature, IDOT provided $22.5 million dollars from the Illinois Road Fund to assist ISP in implementing this expansion. The expansion of the Tamara Clayton Act was labeled Tamara Clayton 2.0. In addition to supporting the installations, the funding also enabled the ISP to secure a maintenance contract for the equipment. On June 28, 2024, the ISP executed a contract with Motorola Solutions, who became the primary vendor for the ALPR Project. The contract expires on December 15, 2027. The vendor will install all ALPR Systems in accordance with IDOT policies.

In May 2025, IDOT appropriated $7 million dollars to continue installations. As of July 2025, at least one ALPR site has been installed in each of the 21 legislatively named counties. A total of 588 cameras have been installed statewide.

PROGRAM

ISP manages the program from a deployment perspective, which includes procurement, installation, ownership, and maintenance of the physical and technological infrastructure of the ALPR Systems. IDOT provides funding and procurement assistance. Currently, ISP utilizes the Motorola Solutions Vehicle Manager ALPR system. The ALPR system, including hardware and data, will be the sole property of the ISP and are intended for use in law enforcement and public safety functions. The ISP’s initial deployments focused on Interstates identified through data where violent crimes occurred or principal arterial routes to and from these locations.

Violent crime statistics
Traffic volume and patterns
Suitable infrastructure

On June 30, 2025, Governor Pritzker signed House Bill 3339 into law, which expanded the definition of “forcible felony” to include human trafficking and involuntary servitude. The bill also added Lee, Ogle, and Whiteside counties into the ALPR expansion.

The ISP is required to provide details about the program’s objectives, counties where the program is operational, and policies under which the program operates every year. The ALPR Annual Report is publicly available and posted online. This page and the data within satisfy those requirements.

HOW ALPR'S WORK

An ALPR is designed to capture an image of a vehicle's license plate. The software then compares the license plate number against law enforcement databases such as the National Crime Information Center (NCIC), the Law Enforcement Agency Data System (LEADS), the Department of Homeland Security, and the Illinois Secretary of State (SOS), and National Amber Alerts. An ALPR "alert" occurs when a vehicle's license plate number has been positively compared with vehicles listed in the databases above.

OBJECTIVES

ISP program objectives include but are not limited to:

Aiding criminal investigations and prosecutions of felonious crimes involving vehicles.
Reducing violent crime through intelligence-led patrols and investigations, including gun violence on interstates.
Managing the program for the state and local law enforcement partners by placing cameras and collecting, analyzing, and disseminating qualifying criminal ALPR information within Illinois.
Ensure appropriate use of ALPR systems. ISP officers have been trained to access and use of Vehicle Manager from Motorola. ISP has developed an ISP Directive dictating the use of the ALPRs and identified a statewide coordinator to ensure continuity of the systems implementation.
Tracking the cost of camera installation by county; the cost of ongoing maintenance of the camera systems by county, including electrical and data transfer costs; the number of inquiries where the investigation involves qualifying criminal offenses; and the number of incidents in which law enforcement searched the stored data for qualifying criminal offenses.
Identifying strategic locations based on high violent crime areas, which include shootings, aggravated vehicular hijackings, and firearm trafficking.

PRIVACY SAFEGUARDS

Access and use of the ALPR data shall be for law enforcement purposes only and in compliance with all applicable training, laws, and administrative rules.
ALPR reads, the capture of digital images or license plates and vehicles with associated metadata (date, time, GPS coordinates with vehicle image capture), will be maintained within the Vehicle Manager storage platform for 90 days. Information obtained from the ALPR system, software, associated databases, and data shall not be disseminated to the public except as authorized or required by law.
Information obtained from the ALPR system, software, associated databases, and data may be disseminated to other law enforcement agencies or officers only to be used for law enforcement or public safety functions.
ALPR system data and historical ALPR system data are not subject to disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
The Vehicle Manager system meets or exceeds the standards set forth by the Department of Justice for the security and transmission of law enforcement data Vigilant Learn Security and Compliance MemorandumOpens in new window