{"id":262392,"date":"2026-08-10T03:54:07","date_gmt":"2026-08-10T03:54:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/262392\/"},"modified":"2026-08-10T03:54:07","modified_gmt":"2026-08-10T03:54:07","slug":"pekin-police-ask-city-to-waive-competitive-bidding-for-license-plate-reading-cameras","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/262392\/","title":{"rendered":"Pekin Police ask city to waive competitive bidding for license plate reading cameras"},"content":{"rendered":"

PEKIN (25News Now<\/a>) – The Pekin City Council will decide whether to continue doing business with Flock Safety, the company that makes automated license plate reading cameras, and has been criticized recently for violating privacy rights. <\/p>\n

On Monday night\u2019s agenda, the council is being asked to forgo competitive bidding and renew the city\u2019s annual contract with Flock<\/a> for 54 cameras. <\/p>\n

The cost is $173,900, funded by a multi-year State of Illinois grant to prevent carjackings and vehicle thefts. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe Flock System has proven to be an invaluable tool to investigate serious crimes along with ongoing narcotics trafficking investigations within the City of Pekin, Police Chief Seth Ranney said in a report to the council.<\/p>\n

Ranney is asking the council to waive the competitive bidding process because it would be costly and time-consuming for another company to install its own cameras. And, he said police would likely lose evidence because the department would not have access to information from all of the other communities that use the Flock system.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Flock system is the only system that allows for the utilization of a large network of cameras from our law enforcement partners locally and across the state,\u201d Ranney said. <\/p>\n

The company has been criticized for developing a technology that, if misused, can violate a person\u2019s privacy rights<\/a>. In one case, a North Carolina police officer<\/a> is accused of using Flock cameras to track her boyfriend\u2019s ex-wife. <\/p>\n

Last year, Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias raised privacy concerns<\/a> after the company allegedly shared information from license plate reading cameras to federal border agents. <\/p>\n

Flock Safety responded to the complaints by putting a hold on pilot programs with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security\u2019s Customs and Border Protection.<\/p>\n

Get 25NewsStreaming on your smart TV \u2014 it\u2019s free and easy. Watch live newscasts, recent newscasts, top news stories, updated forecasts, local sports highlights, and exclusive content. Search \u201cWEEK 25 News\u201d to install.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 WEEK. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PEKIN (25News Now) – The Pekin City Council will decide whether to continue doing business with Flock Safety,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":262393,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[110995,110993,110992,110987,41226,33042,110988,27377,6093,990,48749,710,24748,74808,110989,110994,24753,110991,2637,13210,110986,58010,206,2535,736,128,130,129,4753,108826,3860,33014,110990,85,44323,9137,1562,6967,5865],"class_list":["post-262392","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-25news","tag-agents","tag-alexi-giannoulias","tag-automated","tag-bidding","tag-border","tag-cameras","tag-carjackings","tag-chief","tag-city-council","tag-competitive","tag-crimes","tag-federal","tag-flock","tag-forgo","tag-homeland","tag-illinois","tag-invaluable","tag-investigate","tag-license","tag-pekin","tag-plate","tag-police","tag-privacy","tag-reading","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news","tag-rights","tag-secretary-of-state","tag-security","tag-serious","tag-seth-ranney","tag-state","tag-thefts","tag-tool","tag-u-s","tag-vehicle","tag-week"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262392","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=262392"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262392\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/262393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=262392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=262392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=262392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}