Naperville police say they are grappling with a big jump in Freedom of Information Act requests for body cam footage, prompting them to seek state legislation to address the issue.
“We started with body cameras in 2022,” Naperville Police Chief Jason Arres said. “Obviously the first year wasn’t a lot, but every year since it’s picked up and now, in the last year, it’s been the highest it’s ever been. Our FOIA (requests) are increasing exponentially (as a result).”
FOIA requests are being made for nearly every single arrest made by the Naperville Police Department, Arres said. The issue, however, is not just with the high number of FOIA requests being made but with the intent behind those requests, he said.
“What I’m assuming they’re doing is finding stuff that becomes click-worthy or shocking to see or funny to see, and then they’re posting it on social media to get the clicks and then to monetize it … and then they publish the videos and they’ll put misleading or even at times dehumanizing commentary in there to get more clicks, which means more revenue,” Arres said.
It’s a situation that has put a strain on the police department’s staff, he said. As of Oct. 31, 2025, FOIA requests were 19% higher than in 2024. Those that needed redactions were up 18% and body worn camera requests were up 44%. For the first 10 months of 2025, the amount of time police records personnel spent redacting body cam footage was up 240%, he said.
“On average, it takes us at least six minutes to redact one minute of body worn camera video,” Arres said. “Now imagine if I have three officers on a 60-minute call each. Think about how much time that is to redact all three of those videos, 180 minutes times six. … That’s 18 hours for one FOIA request that I have to have an employee spend to redact that situation I just gave you.”
And for people who have their body cam footage posted online without their knowledge, the fallout can be traumatic.
One person affected by it was Christopher, whose last name is being withheld. He had an interaction with Naperville police in August 2022 while experiencing a mental health episode.
“At the time, I was very shameful for the whole event that happened, and when it came out on social media, it was a big shock,” he said. “I started receiving hateful calls and everything as a result of that.”
The footage was posted without his knowledge about seven months after the incident. For the next three months, he said he received harassing phone calls from unknown people who hurled insults and racial slurs.
“It was every day. Constant. People were calling my phone. Sometimes they wouldn’t even say anything. They’ll just have police sirens in the background,” he said.
He was arrested on felony charges of aggravated unlawful use of a weapon and aggravated battery of a police officer, which were later reduced to misdemeanors, according to DuPage County court records. He was sentenced to jail and completed a term of probation.
But the video of his interaction with Naperville police remains online, something he’s come to terms with but also still haunts him, he said.
“People can just put in my name and that video pops up and it’s not a good representation of who I am,” he said.
Naperville police are not alone in dealing with the body carm footage issue, according to Kenny Winslow, executive director of the Illinois Association of Chiefs of Police.
“We had some legislation we were trying to move last year and we’re going to try to move some this year too because the problem’s not going away,” Winslow said. “It only seems to be spreading from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. It was one of the number one complaints we heard from chiefs last year.”
Arres said that since 2022, they’ve hired four more records employees to address the high volume of FOIA requests for police body cam footage, increasing the department’s FOIA staff count to seven.
Media lawyers and policy experts warn that any new legislation meant to address the situation could have unintended consequences.
“Access to body cam is incredibly important to police accountability,” said Matt Topic, an attorney for Loevy and Loevy who has litigated hundreds of state and federal FOIA cases.
“That’s how we know what the police are up to,” he said. “That’s how we know if they’re doing their jobs properly. That’s why there’s a requirement for body cam in the first place. And keeping on top of all that it is a bigger job than the news media alone could possibly do, especially in areas of the state that lack a local newspaper. There is just too much of it.”
One option legislators have considered is narrowing the scope of who qualifies as news media, but defining news media is a tall order given the increase in nontraditional media outlets and freelance reporters, FOIA experts say.
“The more barriers that go up, the more roadblocks there are in the requesting process, the harder it is for the public to get the records,” said Sophia Van Pelt, senior policy analyst for the Better Government Association. “Especially given that the reason for body cams, right? A big part of what they are for is an accountability tool. When you throw up roadblocks for people to access the footage, you are throwing up roadblocks for accountability.”
Arres said he does not want to diminish police accountability and acknowledged the changing landscape of news media. The differentiator for him, he said, is how a person plans to use the footage.
“Is your intent to monetize it? I think that’s the separator,” he said. “Are you FOIA-ing this video simply for the purpose of making money? Are you doing it to report the news? That, to me, is the separator.”
It’s a hard line to draw, some media experts said.
“It’s very difficult. You’re trying to maintain a system where there is meaningful disclosure while trying to avoid all of those other unintended consequences of folks charging to take them down or charging based on the number of views,” said Don Craven, former president and CEO of the Illinois Press Association.
cstein@chicagotribune.com
