Flock & ALPR Cameras in Evanston, Illinois
Volunteers have reported 4 automated license plate readers in and around Evanston — cameras that log every passing plate with a time and location.
On the record · Cameras Deactivated
Evanston is on the record here. The City of Evanston ended its contract with Flock Safety and requested the deactivation of the cameras following an audit by the Secretary of State showing the company was violating state law by sharing Illinois data with federal agencies. Flock then reinstalled the cameras against the city's wishes, prompting a cease-and-desist by the city.
Jurisdiction · by recorded street address
The 4 cameras counted on this page are every reader mapped within about 20 kilometres of Evanston, so the count crosses municipal lines. By the street address recorded for each one, 2 of them sit inside Evanston itself.
The rest sit in Skokie (2).
Source: community-mapped camera data (OpenStreetMap, ODbL), with addresses resolved by Nominatim.
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- Sep 13 Flock Safety camera newly reported
Newly reported by volunteers — cameras may have been up long before someone mapped them.
Where the cameras are in Evanston
The readers mapped around Evanston break down as 2 Flock Safety, 1 of unrecorded make. The first camera here was reported in Mar 2025; the most recent in Aug 2026.
- Dempster Street — 1 reader
- Church Street — 1 reader
- Emerson Street — 1 reader
Evanston IL PD and the sharing network
Per Flock’s own transparency portal, Evanston IL PD runs 6 cameras of its own.
Evanston in the Cook County picture
Cook County has 1,915 reported cameras county-wide and ranks #823 of 3,222 U.S. counties for cameras per resident. That’s across 5,185,812 residents and 9,668 road miles. By road density that is 0.20 cameras per road mile, in the top 1.2% of counties nationally.
Where contributors recorded what a camera watches, the split here is 3 traffic.
Camera activity around Evanston, last 30 days
1 newly reported, 4 removed in our hourly change log for Evanston. Latest change logged Aug 27, 2026.
What’s watching Evanston
These aren’t red-light cameras. Automated license plate readers like Flock Safety’s photograph every plate that passes, log the time and place, and store it in a searchable database that’s often shared far beyond Evanston — here’s where that data goes. Counts cover cameras reported closest to Evanston (within ~20 km), so nearby towns share the same corridors. Spot one that’s missing? Report it on DeFlock.
The latest around Evanston
- 4 license plate readers reported removed near Evanston, IL
- After Evanston fires Flock, it reinstalls license-plate readers, so Evanston covers them
- Evanston halts license plate reader cameras after Illinois data shared with feds
- Evanston, IL: Cameras Deactivated
What you can do in Evanston
Ask who approved these cameras, how long plate data is kept, and who it’s shared with. File a public records request, raise it at a council meeting, and see the full playbook on Take Action. Fighting this locally? Join or start a chapter and we’ll amplify you.
Not sure what one looks like? See photographs of installed cameras before you go looking.
Cameras near Evanston
← All Illinois cameras, counties & cities
Camera reports: the open-source DeFlock project. Place data: GeoNames (CC BY).