Illinois bill would bar police use of facial recognition, biometric surveillance

Illinois lawmakers are weighing a proposal that would sharply curtail the use of biometric surveillance by police and other law enforcement agencies, setting up a consequential fight over police use of facial recognition, fingerprint matching, iris scans and other tools that have become increasingly embedded in modern law enforcement investigations.

House Bill 5521, the Biometric Surveillance Act, was introduced by state Democratic Reps. Kelly Cassidy, Lilian Jiménez, and Kevin Olickal and would prohibit law enforcement agencies from obtaining, retaining, possessing, accessing, requesting, or using a biometric identification system.

The bill would also bar agencies from sidestepping the restriction by entering into agreements with third parties, other government agencies or federal entities to obtain or use those systems on their behalf.

The legislation goes beyond merely regulating the use of facial recognition by police. The bill would create a broad prohibition on biometric identification systems used by law enforcement, while carving out specific exceptions for employment background checks, fingerprinting following an arrest or conviction, the collection of forensic evidence at crime scenes, and officers verifying their own identity on personal devices.

It would also create a private right of action for people whose rights under the law were violated and authorize the Illinois attorney general to enforce the measure.

In addition, the bill would amend the Illinois Identification Card Act, which authorizes the Secretary of State to issue official ID cards to residents. and the Illinois Vehicle Code to prevent the secretary of state from providing facial recognition search services, except for verifying identity when issuing a mobile driver’s license or identification card.

If enacted, the proposal would amount to one of the more sweeping state level restrictions in the country on law enforcement use of biometric technologies.

Supporters argue that such a move is necessary because Illinois, despite its strong reputation for biometric privacy protections in the commercial sphere, has not imposed comparable limits on government use of the technology.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Illinois, which supports the bill, says biometric identification systems operate in ways that are both invasive and opaque, enabling authorities to track who people are, where they go and what they do.

According to the civil liberties group, the use of facial recognition and related systems threatens privacy rights and can chill free expression, protest activity, and religious participation, particularly because the public often has little visibility into how the tools are being deployed.

“While the State of Illinois regulates companies’ collection and use of sensitive biometric information, local and state law enforcement have been left to their own devices,” the ACLU said. “And because biometric surveillance generally happens in the shadows, the full reach of the surveillance state is unknown.”

Supporters of the bill argue that government use of biometric systems has expanded in the shadows and that the full scope of the surveillance apparatus remains difficult to measure. That concern is central to the legislation’s design.

By prohibiting not just direct use but also agreements with outside vendors and other agencies, the bill seeks to foreclose common workarounds that might otherwise preserve police access to biometric tools even under a nominal ban.

Opponents, however, say the legislation would strip investigators of a valuable and increasingly important means of identifying suspects.

Retired Riverside Police Chief Tom Weitzel said facial recognition is one of the most important investigative tools to come along in policing in 50 years and warned that eliminating it outright would be reckless and dangerous.

Critics argue that facial recognition is typically used not as the sole basis for an arrest or charge but as a lead generating tool that helps investigators identify potential suspects who must then be corroborated through other evidence.

They contend that the bill does not merely impose guardrails but would effectively remove a category of investigative capability altogether.

That argument has been reinforced by accounts of cases in which police say facial recognition helped advance serious violent crime investigations.

The Chicago Police Department said detectives investigating murders, rapes, robberies, and kidnappings have developed important leads by submitting surveillance images to facial recognition databases, including those maintained by the Illinois secretary of state.

The department also cited the March killing of Loyola University freshman Sheridan Gorman, in which police reportedly sought help from U.S. Customs and Border Protection to identify a possible suspect through facial recognition.

Under HB 5521, that type of cooperation would be barred.

The political divide around the bill has been stark. Republican state Rep. Patrick Sheehan, a police officer from Homer Glen, blasted the proposal as a measure that would send law enforcement back to the Stone Age and leave more crimes unsolved.

Supporters of the bill reject the idea that biometric systems are indispensable, arguing instead that public safety requires a wider conversation about what tools should be permitted and under what constraints.

ACLU spokesperson Ed Yohnka acknowledged that the bill would end law enforcement’s use of this one tool but argued that adding another flawed identification method to a system already prone to error is not the answer.

At the same time, advocates have struggled to identify documented Illinois cases in which someone was criminally charged solely because of a facial recognition match without corroborating evidence.

The measure’s legislative path also appears uncertain. The bill initially failed to be advanced out of the Illinois House Judiciary Civil Committee and was sent back to the Rules Committee. While the proposal has drawn substantial opposition, it also has gained co-sponsors, a sign that the effort remains politically alive even if its prospects are unclear.

HB 5521 is about more than facial recognition alone. It is a test of whether Illinois is prepared to extend its strong biometric privacy posture beyond the private sector and into the realm of government surveillance.

For supporters, that would close a glaring loophole in state law. For opponents, it would needlessly disable a powerful investigative tool at a time when police are increasingly expected to solve complex crimes with precision and speed.

Article Topics

ACLU  |  biometric identification  |  biometrics  |  data privacy  |  facial recognition  |  Illinois  |  law enforcement  |  police  |  regulation  |  surveillance