Police in Chicago, and elsewhere in the state of Illinois, are dramatically expanding the deployment of stealth cameras to catch alleged speeders. The cameras may be a massive invasion of privacy, however, according to some legal experts who are calling for precautions to be taken with the surveillance data.

Recent moves to install such technology in Illinois come as other states are taking action to block its use. Some citizens are taking matters into their own hands, using so-called “photo-blocker” spray to shield themselves from the constitutionally questionable speed traps.

“Chicago must afford some way for those ticketed to say, ‘Right car; right license plate; wrong person,’” said Harold Krent, a law professor and dean of the Chicago-Kent College of Law at the Illinois Institute of Technology.

“Chicago needs to embrace a system to determine how long its surveillance images will be kept and to limit access to such images,” he added.

Chicago Mayor Richard Daley called the vans the “police cars of the future.”

Illinois government agencies tried to implement traffic surveillance technology nearly 20 years ago, but civil liberties concerns undermined the plan. Last summer in Virginia, meanwhile, legislators shut down a similar program.

The national office of the American Civil Liberties Union has opposed red-light cameras in Washington, D.C., saying the cameras intrude on the constitutionally protected right to privacy.

The cameras shift the burden of proof from government to citizens and unfairly penalize car owners who may not necessarily be red-light runners, according to the ACLU.

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