Mayor Robert J. Lovero of Berwyn issued an executive order this week calling for the suspension of the city police’s use of Flock cameras and the prohibition of city employees accessing the network of stored Flock data.
The executive order, signed and filed on Tuesday, Sept. 22, calls for Police Chief Michael Fellows to “immediately” suspend the Flock program and prevent city staff from operating or accessing the license plate reading cameras. The order is set to last through June 2028, which is the conclusion of Berwyn’s five-year contract with Flock that began in June 2023.
In a letter to Berwyn’s residents and city council also dated Sept. 22, Lovero said the city’s legal department and counsel will review the contract with Flock and “related state grant criteria” to make sure the city “can reasonably meet [its] obligations” moving forward.
Lovero said he had conducted an internal audit alongside police administration prior to the issuance of the executive order, in which they found “no issues or inconsistencies” with “how the technology and its data were used” by Berwyn police.
A press release from the city dated Sept. 23 described Lovero’s decision to shut down the use of Flock cameras as a “proactive decision” that “does not reflect an accusation of misconduct by Berwyn police personnel.”
In his letter, Lovero attributed his decision in part to the “many residents [who] are asking” Berwyn to discontinue its use of Flock cameras, which have attracted national attention for the data they collect, sparking concerns around the surveillance of civilians without reasonable suspicion and the potential for misuse by police, both in the community where the cameras are located or in one of the potentially many other police departments the data may be shared with.
There have also been instances where local police have shared data with federal immigration officers.
In a Facebook post on Sept. 23, Ald. Micah Caldwell of Berwyn’s First Ward mentioned the issue had first been raised more than a year ago. While Caldwell said he was “glad the mayor took this step,” he urged the city council to take further action in the form of an ordinance, as the executive order does not cancel the Flock contract or call for the covering, deactivation or removal of the cameras themselves.
Berwyn is not the first municipality in the region to disown Flock as the cameras come under increasing scrutiny across the country. In August 2025, Oak Park’s village board voted 4-3 to cancel the village’s contract with Flock and shut down its eight license plate reading cameras the next day.
Riverside is discussing the renewal of its contract with Flock for the use of two cameras as village staff and officials solidify the village’s budget for 2027.
Public Safety Director Matthew Buckley said Riverside’s use of Flock since March 2024 is primarily to track vehicles involved in crimes that pass into or out of the village.
Village President Doug Pollock said he has been “satisfied” with Riverside’s use of internal safeguards to prevent the misuse of the cameras or data they collect.
At least one Riverside resident, former trustee Mark Shevitz, has spoken out against the use of Flock in a Letter to the Editor of the Landmark arguing the burden should fall to village government to prove the surveillance of civilian residents is worth the value the cameras provide to police rather than residents demonstrating an abuse of the technology.