TL;DR: Illinois Rep. Kelly Cassidy introduced HB5521 on February 6, 2026, a bill that would ban police from using facial recognition databases statewide. Days later, Chicago police used facial recognition to identify the suspect in the murder of Loyola University freshman Sheridan Gorman. That murder happened in Cassidy’s own district. The ACLU backs the ban, citing wrongful arrests and surveillance overreach. Chicago PD points to cases like the Blue Line stabbing of Dominique Pollion, where facial recognition identified a killer who filmed his own crime. Illinois has the nation’s toughest biometric privacy law for companies. This bill would extend it to cops.
What HB5521 Would Do
The Illinois Biometric Surveillance Act would bar state and local police from using any biometric identification system. That includes:[1]
- Facial recognition programs
- Iris scanners
- Fingerprint-matching databases
- Any software that collects or processes biometric information
It would also block the Illinois Secretary of State from providing facial recognition searches using driver’s license photos: the exact database Chicago PD uses to identify suspects.
The bill includes narrow exceptions: background checks, fingerprinting for arrests and convictions, forensic evidence collection, and work-issued device access.[1]
If it passes, people whose biometric data is improperly collected could sue. Damages: $1,000 per negligent violation, $5,000 per intentional violation, plus attorney fees. The state Attorney General could also bring enforcement actions.[1]
March 19: The Loyola Murder
Sheridan Gorman was 18. A freshman at Loyola University. On March 19, 2026, she was walking near Loyola Beach in Rogers Park with friends when a man in all black jumped out from behind a lighthouse, fired a gun, and hit her in the upper back.[2]
She died at the scene.
Rogers Park is in Illinois’s 14th District. Rep. Kelly Cassidy’s district.
Here’s how Chicago police found the suspect:
Officers recovered surveillance footage from an apartment building showing a man leaving before the shooting with a limp, wearing a black ski mask and dark clothing. A lobby camera caught his face without the mask.
Police ran the image through facial recognition software. U.S. Customs and Border Protection records returned a match: Jose Gregoria Medina Medina, a 25-year-old Venezuelan national.[2]
Inside Medina’s apartment, officers found the clothes from the video and a .40-caliber handgun matching shell casings at the scene. He’s now charged with first-degree murder and aggravated use of a firearm.[2]
January 11: The Blue Line Stabbing
Dominique Pollion, 37, was sleeping on a Blue Line train in the Loop around 2:15 a.m. on January 11, 2026.[3]
Demetrius Thurman, 21, walked up behind him holding a knife in one hand and his phone in the other. He started recording. Then he stabbed Pollion in the chest and abdomen while he slept.
Thurman didn’t just get caught on CTA surveillance cameras. He filmed himself committing the murder. After security officers found Pollion’s body, prosecutors say Thurman was outside the train recording and saying “somebody got his a**” before walking away.[3]
Detectives fed CTA video into the Illinois Secretary of State’s facial recognition database. The system matched Thurman. Police arrested him the next day, still wearing the same clothes.[3]
Under HB5521, police couldn’t have used that database.
The Arguments
For the Ban (ACLU Illinois)
“These technologies are flawed and inaccurate. They enable invasive power to track who we are, where we go, and what we do.”[1]
The ACLU argues facial recognition “threatens the well-being of our communities, our privacy rights and our ability to freely express ideas, protest government policies, and attend places of worship.”
Against the Ban
One state lawmaker called the proposal putting “law enforcement back in the Stone Age.”[4]
Chicago PD points to solved murders, kidnappings, and sexual assaults. In Cassidy’s own words, opponents focus on “particularly heinous and troubling crimes” while ignoring misidentification.
Cassidy’s Position
Rep. Kelly Cassidy introduced HB5521 on February 6, 2026. Hours later, Sheridan Gorman was murdered in her district.[5]
The timing wasn’t planned. But the contrast became impossible to ignore.
Cassidy has pressed forward anyway. At legislative hearings in late March, she argued facial recognition is “demonstrably inaccurate” and pointed to wrongful arrests across the country.[5]
“It is curious that in discussing this issue, we hear about particularly heinous and troubling crimes, but nothing about people being misidentified by facial recognition technology and held for hours (if not days) based on system errors,” Cassidy said.[1]
She’s not wrong. At least eight Americans have been wrongfully arrested due to facial recognition misidentification in 2026 alone, including Angela Lipps, a Tennessee grandmother who spent 108 days in jail for crimes committed 1,200 miles away.
Illinois Already Has the Nation’s Toughest Biometric Law
Illinois’s Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) is the reason Meta paid $650 million in 2021 and $1.4 billion in 2024 for facial recognition violations.
BIPA requires companies to get consent before collecting biometric data. It lets individuals sue for violations. It’s the model other states are copying.
But BIPA only covers private companies. It doesn’t touch government agencies.
The ACLU puts it plainly: “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. And because biometric surveillance generally happens in the shadows, the full reach of the surveillance state is unknown.”[1]
HB5521 would close that gap.
The Federal Connection
Chicago PD matched Medina through U.S. Customs and Border Protection records.[2]
That’s the same CBP that signed a contract with Clearview AI for access to 60 billion face images. The same federal agency that’s building a database of over 200 million images for facial recognition searches.
Illinois can ban state police from using facial recognition. But federal agencies operate under different rules. If local cops can’t run a search, they can ask the feds.
HB5521 tries to address this. The bill prohibits local law enforcement from “entering into agreements with third parties, state or local government agencies, or federal agencies” to use biometric identification systems.[1]
Whether that survives federal preemption arguments is another question.
What Happens Next
HB5521 has had multiple days of legislative hearings. Cassidy is pushing for a vote.
The bill faces powerful opposition. Law enforcement groups argue it would cripple investigations. The Blue Line stabbing case, where the killer literally filmed himself, makes for an effective counterargument.
But wrongful arrest cases make for effective arguments too. Every time a grandmother spends months in jail for crimes she didn’t commit, the algorithm’s fallibility becomes undeniable.
Illinois could become the first state to ban police facial recognition statewide. Or the bill could die in committee, killed by the same week’s headlines about murders solved by the technology.
What Illinoisans Can Do
Track the Bill
Follow HB5521 at ilga.gov. The bill number is HB5521 in the 104th General Assembly. Hearings are ongoing.
Contact Your Representative
Whether you support or oppose the ban, your state rep needs to hear from you. Find your legislator at ilga.gov/house.
Know Your Rights
If arrested, demand to know if facial recognition was used in your case. Under BIPA, you have rights regarding biometric data, even if the current law doesn’t cover police use.
Understand the Trade-offs
This isn’t a simple debate. Facial recognition solves crimes. It also destroys innocent people’s lives through misidentification. Both things are true.
References
- ACLU of Illinois: HB 5521: Biometric Surveillance Act (2026)
- ABC7 Chicago: New details about Jose Medina, suspect in death of Sheridan Gorman (March 2026)
- CBS Chicago: Man accused of recording himself as he stabbed sleeping CTA passenger to death on Blue Line (January 2026)
- Cities 92.9: Lawmaker: Biometrics ban would put law enforcement back in the Stone Age (March 2026)
- CWB Chicago: Legislator presses forward with facial recognition ban even after it helped solve Loyola student murder case in her district (March 2026)