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 was installed in each of the 21 legislatively named counties. In February 2026, IDOT appropriated approximately $10.6 million dollars for new ALPR installations in Bureau, Champaign, Grundy, Henry, Kendall, LaSalle, Madison, Rock Island, and Winnebago counties. A total of 808 cameras has been installed statewide. The Illinois State Tollway Highway Authority did not report any new ALPR installations in 2025-2026. The number of cameras in each county can be viewed in the ISP Transparency/ Shooting Dashboard link: ALPR Statistics Dashboard Opens in new window .

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.

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 808 cameras have been installed statewide.

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 compares the license plate numbers against law enforcement databases such as the National Crime Information Center (NCIC) and the Law Enforcement Agency Data System (LEADS). By identifying license plates, the ISP can assist with missing persons, AMBER alerts, people in crisis, and vehicles involved in felonious criminal activity. ALPR data is not used to enforce immigration violations nor deny or interfere with a person’s right to choose or obtain reproductive health care service.

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. Department audits are conducted monthly.
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 and human 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 and with written consent or a MOU.
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  Motorola Security and Compliance Memorandum Opens in new window

Frequently Asked Questions

An ALPR is an automated license plate reader and is defined by 625 ILCS 5/2-130 to mean “an electronic device that is mounted on a law enforcement vehicle or positioned in a stationary location and that is capable of recording data on or taking a photograph of a vehicle or its license plate and comparing the collected data and photographs to existing law enforcement databases for investigative purposes.”

This also includes a device that is owned or operated by a private person or private entity to the extent the data collected by the reader is shared with a law enforcement agency.

An ALPR is designed to capture an image of a vehicle’s license plate. The software compares the license plate numbers against law enforcement databases to assist law enforcement with missing persons, AMBER alerts, people in crisis, and vehicles involved in criminal activity.

An ALPR collects an image of the vehicle and an image of the license plate with a date-stamped time and geographical location.

An ALPR does not collect images of drivers, passengers, or any personally identifiable information. ALPRs only collect a date, time, and location-stamped image of the license plate and vehicle.

The Illinois State Police use both stationary and mobile license plate recognition cameras. Stationary cameras are installed along Interstates and State Highways, while mobile cameras are mounted on ISP squad cars.

Stationary cameras were placed in compliance with the Tamara Clayton Act. The Tamara Clayton Act creates a statewide program to install and operate cameras on Illinois expressways and major highways to help law enforcement investigate serious crimes such as vehicular hijacking, shootings, forcible felonies, terrorism, and motor-vehicle theft.

The cameras are not meant for enforcing minor traffic offenses.

No. ALPRs do not provide constant surveillance of anyone’s location. ALPRs only capture a vehicle’s license plate at a single moment in time with a date, time, and location stamp.

ISP stores data collected from ALPRs for a maximum of 90 days, after which the data is automatically deleted.

Access to the ALPR data is restricted to law enforcement personnel who have completed training.

All ALPR activity is permanently logged, and those records are audited monthly to ensure proper and lawful use of the system.

If there is improper usage, the user may be revoked from the system.

For ALPRs that fall within the Tamara Clayton Expressway Camera Act, law enforcement may access ALPRs for vehicular hijacking, aggravated vehicular hijacking, terrorism, motor vehicle theft, any forcible felony, including offenses involving firearms, expressway/highway hazards and conditions, highway safety and incident management, responding to AMBER or SILVER Alerts, combating human trafficking, and identifying other specialized hot-list vehicles.

All other ALPRs are governed by 625 ILCS 5/2-130 and may only be accessed by law enforcement for investigative purposes.

ISP only shares its ALPR data with other law enforcement entities.

While ISP ALPR data was previously shared with federal agencies such as the FBI and HSI, all federal sharing access has since been removed.