When Police Use Flock Cameras to Stalk Someone: Does Illinois Law Have a Criminal Penalty?

What happens when a police officer uses a government surveillance system to track someone for personal reasons? In the age of Flock cameras and automated license plate readers, Illinois may be facing a new kind of law-enforcement accountability problem.

A recent case involving the Naperville Police Department illustrates the problem.

According to an investigation reported by the ABC7 Chicago I-Team, Naperville Police Officer Oscar Maldonado allegedly used the department’s Flock automated license plate reader system to search for the vehicle of Patrick Dowhen approximately 150 times over a three-month period.

Dowhen was not accused of a crime.

According to the reporting, the searches began after Maldonado became involved with Dowhen’s fiancée. Dowhen said information about his movements was subsequently being provided to his former fiancée.

Naperville’s internal investigation reportedly concluded that there was a preponderance of evidence that Maldonado committed official misconduct, and investigators documented more than 100 pieces of evidence showing violations of department policy and abuse of authority. The investigation also reported that Maldonado admitted using Flock for personal reasons.

Yet the case highlights a difficult question:

Is there a specific Illinois criminal law that makes this conduct a crime simply because a police officer used an ALPR system to conduct unauthorized personal surveillance?

The answer is not as straightforward as many people might expect.

What Happened in Naperville?

The facts reported by ABC7 are remarkable.

According to the department’s investigation, Maldonado searched the Flock system for Dowhen’s vehicle approximately 150 times over a three-month period.

Dowhen reportedly became so concerned that he was being tracked that he searched his vehicle for a physical tracking device.

He eventually contacted Naperville’s police chief.

The investigation concluded that Maldonado had improperly used the system and rejected his explanation that the searches were related to the safety of himself, his family, and Dowhen’s former fiancée.

Dowhen also obtained a stalking no-contact order in Will County. The order was later replaced by an agreement between the two men for a two-year no-contact/no-stalking order.

But the criminal-law question remains separate from whether the conduct violated police policy.

Police Policy and Criminal Law Are Not the Same Thing

This is an important distinction.

A police department can prohibit an officer from doing something even when the conduct does not clearly constitute a criminal offense.

Naperville’s ALPR policy, for example, requires historical searches to be connected to a legitimate law-enforcement or public-safety purpose and requires identifying information such as an incident, CAD, or case number and the reason for the search.

The department also states that ALPR activity is logged and subject to audit.

So if an officer searches a license plate database because of a personal dispute, that may be a clear violation of department policy.

But violating department policy does not automatically mean that the officer has committed a felony or misdemeanor under Illinois criminal law.

That is where the potential gap begins.

Illinois Does Have an Official Misconduct Statute

Illinois is not completely without a criminal statute that addresses misconduct by public officials.

Under 720 ILCS 5/33-3, a public officer or employee commits official misconduct in several circumstances.

Among other things, the statute covers an officer who:

• Intentionally or recklessly fails to perform a mandatory legal duty;
• Knowingly performs an act the officer knows he or she is forbidden by law to perform; or
• With the intent to obtain a personal advantage for himself or another, performs an act in excess of his lawful authority.

A conviction under the statute is a Class 3 felony and results in forfeiture of the officer’s position.

At first glance, that sounds like it should solve the problem.

But criminal statutes have elements that prosecutors must prove beyond a reasonable doubt.

An officer’s improper use of a government database may clearly violate department policy without necessarily satisfying every element of official misconduct.

That distinction matters.

The “Personal Advantage” Problem

One potential avenue under the official misconduct statute is the provision addressing an officer who acts outside his lawful authority with intent to obtain a personal advantage for himself or another.

But prosecutors would still need to establish the required statutory elements.

The question isn’t simply:

“Did the officer use Flock for a bad reason?”

The criminal-law questions are more specific:

Was the officer acting in his official capacity?

Was the particular act outside his lawful authority?

Did he have the required intent?

Did he knowingly perform an act he knew he was forbidden by law to perform?

What specific law prohibited the conduct?

Those are much different questions from whether the conduct was inappropriate.

ABC7’s chief legal analyst made essentially this point, observing that an officer’s improper access to license-plate information does not necessarily fall within Illinois’ official-misconduct statute simply because the access was for an improper purpose.

What About Illinois’ Stalking Law?

Illinois does have a stalking statute.

Under 720 ILCS 5/12-7.3, stalking can include knowingly engaging in a course of conduct directed at a specific person when the person knows or should know the conduct would cause a reasonable person to fear for safety or suffer emotional distress.

The statute also separately addresses situations involving surveillance or following when additional statutory requirements are satisfied.

At first glance, repeatedly searching for someone’s vehicle location sounds remarkably similar to surveillance.

But again, criminal prosecution requires proof of the specific elements of the statute.

That can become complicated when the alleged surveillance consists not of physically following someone but of repeatedly querying a government database containing historical location information.

The technology changes the factual mechanics of the conduct.

And that is precisely why the law may need to catch up with the technology.

Flock Is Different From Traditional Stalking

Imagine two scenarios.

Scenario One: Physical Surveillance

An individual follows another person’s vehicle around town every day.

The person sees the vehicle, follows it, and records where it goes.

Scenario Two: Database Surveillance

A police officer sits at a desk and enters a person’s license plate into an ALPR system.

The system returns historical detections showing where that vehicle was observed.

The officer repeats the search dozens or hundreds of times.

The second scenario may accomplish much of the same thing as physical surveillance without the officer ever leaving the police station.

And the second method can potentially be much more powerful.

Instead of seeing where someone is right now, an ALPR system can allow an authorized user to reconstruct patterns of movement.

That can reveal:

• Where someone lives
• Where they work
• Where their children attend school
• Which doctor they visit
• Which church they attend
• Where they exercise
• Where they regularly shop
• Who they may visit
• When they are normally away from home

Naperville itself describes ALPR technology as a powerful investigative tool and acknowledges that its use raises legitimate privacy considerations.

Illinois Already Regulates Some ALPR Uses

Illinois is not starting from zero.

In 2023, Illinois enacted legislation creating Section 2-130 of the Illinois Vehicle Code governing users of automated license plate readers.

Among other things, the law restricts certain sharing of ALPR information and requires Illinois ALPR information to be kept confidential to the fullest extent permitted by law.

The statute, however, was not written as a comprehensive criminal code governing every possible misuse of an ALPR system by an individual police officer.

That distinction is important.

Illinois has an ALPR law. It does not necessarily have an ALPR-misuse crime tailored to the scenario now emerging.

Lawmakers Have Already Recognized the Problem

Interestingly, proposed legislation in the General Assembly demonstrates that lawmakers are already considering stronger ALPR-specific restrictions.

For example, HB 5231, introduced during the 104th General Assembly, would have created more detailed restrictions governing law-enforcement use of ALPR systems.

The proposal included restrictions on when ALPR systems could be used, retention requirements, audit trails, reporting requirements, and policies governing their use.

Most importantly for this discussion, the proposal would have made certain willful and intentional unauthorized queries, accesses, or uses of ALPR systems a Class 1 misdemeanor.

The bill was referred back to the Rules Committee on March 27, 2026, and had not become law at the time of this article.

Another proposal, SB 3816, would have created an Automated License Plate Recognition System Act addressing authorized uses, prohibited uses, retention, reporting, admissibility, penalties, and a private right of action. Its last listed action was referral back to Assignments in May 2026.

These proposals are significant because they show that the legislature has already identified some of the issues surrounding ALPR technology.

Why a Specific ALPR Misuse Law Could Matter

A narrowly tailored statute could make the rule much clearer.

For example, Illinois could expressly prohibit an officer or other authorized user from intentionally accessing ALPR information for:

• Personal surveillance
• Harassment
• Retaliation
• Romantic or family disputes
• Political purposes
• Financial gain
• Monitoring a person who is not the subject of a legitimate investigation

The law could also establish clear penalties.

That would accomplish something that department policy alone cannot:

It would tell officers that certain misuse of a government surveillance system is not merely a personnel violation—it is a criminal offense.

The Goal Should Not Be to Criminalize Honest Mistakes

Any new law would need to be carefully drafted.

Police officers legitimately use ALPR systems to investigate crimes, locate stolen vehicles, find missing or endangered people, and develop investigative leads. Naperville identifies those among the legitimate purposes for its system.

An officer who accidentally enters the wrong plate number should not necessarily face criminal prosecution.

Likewise, an officer conducting a legitimate investigation should not have to fear criminal liability simply because the investigation later turns out not to produce an arrest.

A criminal statute should therefore distinguish between:

Good-faith law enforcement use

and

intentional personal misuse of government surveillance technology.

The latter is where the accountability question becomes most compelling.

Why This Matters Beyond One Officer

The Naperville case is not simply about one alleged misuse of one camera system.

According to ABC7, its investigation identified 14 cases across the Chicago area involving officers accused of misusing Flock technology, with at least five referred to prosecutors for review.

That suggests this may not be an isolated issue.

The technology is becoming increasingly common.

And every time a new surveillance technology becomes part of routine policing, the law has to answer an important question:

What happens when the person authorized to use the technology abuses that authorization?

Traditional laws may cover some situations.

But technology can create new factual circumstances that lawmakers never specifically contemplated when those statutes were written.

There Is Also a Constitutional Question

Criminal prosecution is only one part of the legal picture.

The use of ALPR technology can also raise questions under the Fourth Amendment and the Illinois Constitution’s search-and-seizure protections, depending on how the technology is used and what information is obtained.

Courts have spent years addressing how modern technology changes expectations of privacy.

The Supreme Court’s decision in Carpenter v. United States, for example, addressed government acquisition of historical cell-site location information and recognized the unusually revealing nature of long-term location data.

ALPR systems present different technology and legal questions, so Carpenter does not automatically determine whether a particular Flock search is constitutional.

But the underlying issue is increasingly familiar:

Modern technology can allow the government to reconstruct a person’s movements in ways that would have been extraordinarily difficult or impossible in the past.

The Accountability Gap Is Bigger Than Criminal Law

Even if Illinois eventually creates a specific ALPR misuse offense, criminal prosecution should not be the only safeguard.

A comprehensive system should include:

Audit Logs

Every search should create a record showing who conducted it, when it occurred, what was searched, and why.

Regular Audits

Supervisors should periodically examine searches for unusual patterns.

Meaningful Discipline

Improper use should have consequences even when prosecutors cannot prove a crime beyond a reasonable doubt.

Access Restrictions

Officers should receive only the access necessary for their legitimate duties.

Transparency

Communities should be able to understand how their local police department uses ALPR technology.

Clear Criminal Penalties

Intentional personal misuse should have a clearly defined criminal consequence where appropriate.

Naperville’s current policy already includes several of these concepts, including access restrictions, search documentation, logging, auditing, and investigation of suspected misuse.

The question is whether those safeguards should exist solely as department policy or also be reinforced by state law.

The Technology Is Here. The Law Is Catching Up.

The Naperville case illustrates a larger challenge facing Illinois.

A police officer can now potentially learn where someone has been without physically following that person.

The information is generated by a surveillance network installed for public-safety purposes.

And when that system is abused, the law must determine whether the misconduct is merely a personnel violation, a constitutional violation, a criminal offense—or some combination of the three.

Illinois already has stalking and official-misconduct statutes. Illinois also has an ALPR statute. But none was necessarily written specifically for the modern scenario of an officer repeatedly using an ALPR database to conduct personal surveillance of another person.

That does not mean an officer can never be prosecuted.

It means prosecutors must fit the conduct within existing statutes and prove every required element of the applicable offense.

That is a very different proposition from having a statute that says plainly:

You may not use a government ALPR system to conduct personal surveillance of another person.

As Flock and similar systems become more widespread, Illinois lawmakers may need to decide whether existing law provides enough protection—or whether the state needs a specific offense addressing intentional misuse of automated license plate reader systems.

The Bottom Line

The Naperville case should prompt an important public conversation about the limits of police access to ALPR technology.

The issue isn’t whether Flock cameras are inherently good or bad. Used properly, they can help police locate stolen vehicles, missing people, and vehicles associated with criminal investigations.

The issue is what happens when someone with authorized access uses that powerful system for an unauthorized personal purpose.

A police department can prohibit the conduct. A prosecutor can investigate it. A court can potentially address constitutional violations. But if Illinois wants a clear criminal penalty specifically for intentional personal misuse of ALPR surveillance, the General Assembly may need to write that rule explicitly.

Technology should not create a loophole simply because the legislature did not anticipate the particular way the technology could be abused.

If you have questions about Illinois ALPR laws, police surveillance, FOIA requests, privacy rights, or government use of surveillance technology, contact the Law Office of Jonathan W. Cole P.C. at (708) 529-7794 Your Neighborhood Law Firm.