LOCAL SURVEILLANCE · COOK COUNTY, ILLINOIS

Cook County

Cook County contains 134 municipalities, making this the largest municipal batch in the Illinois directory. Initial primary-record research documents Sheriff drones and GPS electronic monitoring, while Chicago, Skokie, Evanston, and Oak Park receive separate surveillance findings. The remaining municipality pages are explicit research queues rather than claims of no surveillance.

MUNICIPALITIES · OFFICIAL BOUNDARIES

134 municipal jurisdictions.

Cook County’s current government profile states that the county contains 134 municipalities. The Illinois State Archives local-government index is used to cross-check municipal names and forms.

Research available Unresearched

Cook County · click a municipal boundary to open its dossier

Cook County profile · Illinois State Archives local-government index

COUNTY SYSTEMS

Cook County Sheriff surveillance and monitoring.

DOCUMENTED

Drones / UAS

Cook County Sheriff operates a multi-aircraft Aerial Support Response Team

The Sheriff’s current Fleet Management and Logistics page describes an Aerial Support Response Team of FAA Part 107-certified employees with several UAVs carrying varied technologies. The team deploys for search and rescue, accident reconstruction, crime scenes, missing persons, barricades, tactical response, disasters, hazmat, civil unrest, special events, perimeter security, court cases, and assistance to outside agencies. A current 2026 policy governs UAS use, facial-recognition restrictions, prohibited uses, and retention.

DOCUMENTED

GPS electronic monitoring

Sheriff operates GPS ankle-bracelet electronic monitoring

The Sheriff’s current Electronic Monitoring page describes GPS ankle bracelets that transmit participant location to the Electronic Monitoring Unit and provide two-way communication. The page reported 144 participants on September 8, 2026. Participant materials also state that field staff wear body-worn cameras.

PUBLIC RECORDS · FOIA

Records and official sources.

Primary government records are preferred. Where practical, NoRec keeps a local archival copy alongside the official source so citations remain auditable if a government URL later changes.

Official record

Illinois State Archives — Cook County local-government index

State index for municipal and other local governments in Cook County.

Official source

Official record

Cook County — About Cook County

Current County profile stating that Cook County contains 134 municipalities.

Official source

FOIA portal

Cook County Sheriff — FOIA

Official Cook County entry point for Sheriff public-record requests.

Official source

Official record

Cook County Sheriff — Aerial Support Response Team

Current Sheriff page describing its multi-aircraft sUAS team, deployment categories, and links to policy and procedure.

Official source

Policy 2026-04-01

Cook County Sheriff — Policy 186, Unmanned Aerial System

Current 2026 UAS policy addressing authorized/prohibited uses, facial recognition, private UAS information, and retention.

Official source

Official record 2026-09-08

Cook County Sheriff — Electronic Monitoring Program

Current page describing GPS ankle-bracelet location monitoring and two-way communication.

Official source

NEXT RECORDS

This county is a research program by itself.

Cook County Sheriff current BWC/in-car-camera inventory, vendor, policy, retention, evidence platform, fixed-camera systems, ALPR access/use, and investigative software.
Sheriff ASRT current aircraft inventory, make/models, payloads, flight logs, mutual-aid deployments, and retained UAS media.
Chicago current ALPR vendor/device inventory, POD inventory and locations, in-car video, helicopter video, camera-network integrations, analytics, and data-sharing relationships.
Municipality-by-municipality ALPR, BWC, UAS, fixed-camera, real-time crime center, facial-recognition, social-media analytics, and vendor-contract sweep across the remaining suburban agencies.