POLICE DEPARTMENT USE OF TECHNOLOGY TO KEEP THE PUBLIC AND POLICE OFFICERS SAFER AND MAINTAIN LOW CRIME RATE IN DARIEN
Police agencies around the globe are increasingly deploying advanced technologies like automated license plate readers (ALPR) and drones. Police department policies have also been updated to ensure these technologies are used for the intended purpose.
Darien IL PD uses Flock Safety technology (ALPR) as an investigative tool to identify stolen or wanted vehicles and stolen license plates, to help locate missing persons, to assist in locating people with active warrants, to support suspect questioning and for stolen property recovery. Additionally, Darien PD utilizes real time alerting of hotlist vehicles to capture wanted criminals. In an effort to ensure proper usage and guardrails are in place, they have adopted policies and usage statistics available to the public. You can find detailed information on the Department’s use of Flock Safety at: https://transparency.flocksafety.com/darien-il-pd
The police department also uses Urban SDK, which is a separate platform from the ALPR system and serves an entirely different purpose. It is a traffic analytics tool that provides data about vehicle speed and traffic volume on specific roadway segments. Urban SDK collects aggregate roadway data, including observed speed and traffic volume, organized by roadway segment and time period. This is the same type of data the department has historically obtained through traffic counters placed on roadways. This procedure, which required coordination between the police department and public works was labor intensive and included a long period of time before results were available. Urban SDK provides the same information more efficiently, allowing officers to respond to resident speed complaints with current data rather than waiting weeks for a manual count. You can find detailed information on the Police Department’s use of the Urban SDK system at: https://www.darien.il.us/media/wk2gua0c/darien-pd-urban-sdk-technology-transparency-page-08182026.pdf
The Darien Police Department has also added drones to its public safety toolkit. This technology gives our officers an additional set of eyes in the sky, helping them respond to incidents more quickly and safely while continuing to protect our community. You can find detailed information on the use of drones at: https://www.darien.il.us/media/0a1oa5ac/drone-pd.pdf
The Darien Police Department is proud to remain at the forefront of law enforcement technology and looks forward to using this capability to help make our community even safer.