Flock Cameras in Chicago, IL: Locations, Map & Count

Chicago Police Department runs 583 mapped cameras here, 20% of the metro — 153rd-highest concentration of the 251 metros tracked. Illinois State Police follows with 68.

Of the cameras with a recorded operator type around Chicago, 6 are privately operated — a small but real share of the network that no police agency runs.

Bearing coverage — the share of cameras whose facing is recorded — is 75% around Chicago, 227th of 251. Cameras without a bearing still show on the map, but the app cannot route around them with any precision.

The paper trail is reasonably full. The EFF Atlas of Surveillance documents 61 agencies using plate readers across this area, while the map records 147 distinct operators. That is a records gap rather than an absence of cameras, and it is why this page leans on mapped counts rather than agency filings.

Sheriff's offices are prominent: Cook County Sheriff's Office and DuPage County Sheriff's Office sit in the top twelve, alongside municipal forces such as Illinois State Police, Evergreen Park Police Department, Elmhurst Police Department.

Read from the live map on 13 October 2026. Since 5 October 2026 the 10-mile count moved from 1,076 to 1,081 (+5) and the metro-box count moved from 2,966 to 2,989 (+23). The underlying records are OpenStreetMap entries plus community submissions — nobody who operates a camera is obliged to declare it, so these are the documented minimum rather than the full picture. The metro is a box roughly 50 miles across centred on Chicago.

Chicago ranks 7th of the 251 metro areas BanditKin tracks by mapped cameras, between Dallas, TX and Plano, TX, and 1st by operator count.

Top of the table on size; 227th of 251 on bearing coverage at 75%, and 153rd on lead-operator share at 20%.

Ranked against the 251 metro areas BanditKin tracks, every one read from the live map on 13 October 2026. Metro areas are drawn as a box around the city centre, so neighbouring metros can share cameras and these counts must never be added together.

These are the 20 largest of 147 operators. Where OpenStreetMap names an operator we use that name; otherwise the camera is attributed to whichever jurisdiction it stands in (1,527 cameras here), which is a sound inference rather than a confirmed fact. 1,078 cameras record no operator of any kind.

Manufacturer is a free-text field, so spellings and legal names have been consolidated here. 495 of 2,989 mapped cameras name no manufacturer at all, which makes the actual distribution broader than shown. 1 further manufacturer falls below the eight shown. These count cameras on the map, not purchase orders.

Look for a slim grey or black box the size of a shoebox on its own pole, usually paired with a small solar panel, at intersections and on the approaches to shopping centres. Recorded mounts around Chicago:

One camera covers one approach, so its heading is what decides which journeys end up recorded. Around Chicago the mapped bearings distribute like this:

Bearings come from public map data and describe an approximate capture zone, never an exact field of view. 751 mapped cameras have no recorded bearing, and 9 are tagged as omnidirectional.

Source: Electronic Frontier Foundation, Atlas of Surveillance. Summaries are the Atlas's own wording, trimmed to a complete sentence.

This page is part of the Illinois camera hub, which counts every camera inside the state line rather than by metro box. New to this? Read what ALPR cameras capture, how long it is kept, and who can search it. Not in Chicago? Search the full map by any city.

ALPR camera maps for nearby and related cities: Aurora, IL · Rockford, IL · Milwaukee, WI · Indianapolis, IN · Toledo, OH · Flint, MI · Dayton, OH.