Elmhurst's network of license plate-reading cameras will stay active after the City Council voted unanimously Monday, July 20, to renew its contract with Flock Safety, but not before a resident's privacy concerns prompted Police Chief Michael McLean to publicly defend the surveillance program.

The exchange came as cities across the country drop or scale back their own Flock contracts. The Los Angeles Police Department let its deal expire July 11, 2026, and suburban Evanston terminated its contract in August 2025 after an audit by Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias found the company had allowed U.S. Customs and Border Protection to access Illinois plate data.

At Monday's meeting, a resident raised concerns about the cameras, prompting Alderman Jacob Hill to call for a formal discussion on the contract's renewal terms. Hill then voted in favor of the renewal but indicated he wants a separate policy conversation. No date for that discussion has been set.

McLean responded by outlining the department's data controls. Elmhurst owns its camera data, he said, and Flock cannot share it without police permission.

"We only share data with other Illinois municipal law enforcement agencies," McLean said. "We don't share data out of state. We don't share data with any federal law enforcement agencies."

Detectives must document the reason for every camera inquiry, McLean added. Illinois law, which took effect in 2024, bars police from sharing plate-reader data for immigration enforcement or reproductive-rights investigations.

McLean cited several Elmhurst cases the cameras helped solve: armed robberies, road rage incidents involving firearms, and the killing of a woman in December 2025. He also described a missing-person case in which an elderly resident's car was tracked near Joliet and the person was found safe.

The program has been running since roughly 2016, McLean said, first with Motorola equipment and later with Flock's solar-powered readers, which photograph every passing vehicle and store plate data for 30 days.

The contract renewal had already cleared the Public Affairs and Safety Committee on Monday, June 22, where Deputy Chief Brett Kaczorowski outlined the department's auditing and access guidelines and Detective Commander Matthew McCollum described stolen-vehicle interdictions. The committee approved the report unanimously.

Nationally, 82 Flock contracts have been terminated across 28 states between August 2021 and May 2026, with 39 of those coming in the first five months of 2026, according to reporting by the San Francisco Standard. Residents in nearby Burr Ridge and Darien have also raised privacy objections.

Alderwoman Noel Talluto was absent from Monday's vote.