Chicago mayor’s office responds to questions over CPD’s Flock database access: ‘Serious concerns’
CHICAGO – Mayor Brandon Johnson is now weighing in on an exclusive story we broke for you this week.
The response comes after Fox Chicago’s Se Kwon obtained audit logs that show CPD ran more than 23,000 searches using Flock from May through July of this year.
CPD and Flock camera access
The backstory:
The city of Chicago has been quietly paying a third-party company to buy access to Flock’s database. The city reportedly began making these payments in 2024, using nearly $75,000 in taxpayer funds.
Since 2023, the city has been under a memorandum of understanding with Flock Safety, which apparently allows Chicago police officers to physically log in to Flock’s portal and gain access to its entire database.
A higher-ranking source inside the department told Fox Chicago that only investigators and a designated tech team made up of civilians have access to that network. But CPD, as a department, has not confirmed this yet.
Because the city used what they call an “existing master services agreement” through that third-party company, it bypassed the city budget office and the City Council. That means there were no public hearings and no votes.
“Serious concerns”
What they’re saying:
A spokesperson with the Chicago Mayor’s Office provided the following statement to Fox 32:
“OPSA obtained access to the Flock database following the conclusion of a process which began in 2021 and concluded with the signing of an MOU in January 2023. OPSA used their discretionary budget to pay for access, beginning in 2024. This did not require or involve the approval of OBM or the Mayor’s Office as OPSA has contracting authority.”
“The Mayor’s Office recognizes the serious concerns raised by this arrangement and is engaged in urgent discussions to identify and implement measures to mitigate any potential harm to Chicago residents and protect their privacy and safety.”
The mayor’s office also told Fox Chicago overnight that Johnson is expected to speak about this at some point.
But with that being said, we’re still waiting to hear back from Chicago police about who is running these searches and how many arrests they’ve actually tied to this technology.
This story is developing. Check back for updates.
The Source: The information in this report came from audit logs obtained by Fox Chicago’s Se Kwon, a statement from the Chicago Mayor’s Office, and a source within the Chicago Police Department.
