Australian Capital Territory
Technology presence
What these categories mean
- ANPR
- Automatic number plate recognition (ANPR): camera systems that automatically capture, read, and log vehicle number plates with location and time, producing a searchable record of vehicle movements.
- Fixed cameras & RTCC
- Agency-operated fixed video cameras and the real-time crime centers (RTCC) that aggregate live and recorded feeds for monitoring.
- Face recognition
- Software that matches faces in images or video against a reference database to identify or verify individuals.
- Drones / UAS
- Uncrewed aerial systems (UAS), commonly called drones, operated by an agency for overhead observation, imaging, or sensing.
- Gunshot detection
- Networks of acoustic sensors that detect and locate suspected gunfire and alert an agency.
- Body-worn & dashcam
- Officer body-worn and in-vehicle dashboard cameras that record encounters; public access to the footage is frequently restricted.
- Doorbell & camera registry
- Programs that give an agency access to privately owned camera footage: doorbell-camera partnerships, citizen camera registries, and private-camera integration platforms.
- Cell-site simulators
- Devices that mimic cell towers to locate or identify nearby mobile phones. They are often called Stingrays, or IMSI catchers after the international mobile subscriber identity (IMSI) number that identifies each phone on a network. Adjacent: communications surveillance outside the visual/sensor core.
- Predictive policing
- Software that forecasts where crime may occur or who may be involved, to direct policing. Adjacent: analytics rather than a sensing deployment.
- Social-media monitoring
- Tools that collect and analyze public social-media activity for an agency. Adjacent: open-source/communications monitoring outside the visual/sensor core.
The record, by operator
ACT Policing
A 2022 ACT Policing submission to a Legislative Assembly inquiry proposed linking ANPR to the territory's traffic camera network; that expansion is not confirmed as implemented. ACT Road Policing vehicles are equipped with automatic number plate recognition, including a traffic motorcycle fitted with three cameras; a plate match relays the location and time to the Operations Centre at Winchester Police Centre.
Sources: The Canberra Times, ACT Policing ANPR and the traffic camera network (2022, updated 2023)
From 28 August 2019 officers may manually activate cameras in public places and, with occupant permission, on private premises; activation was previously limited to firearm or taser draws. By August 2019, 369 of a planned 480 kits were deployed following a rollout across ACT patrols from March 2019. In late 2018, 446 Axon Body 2 and 45 Axon Flex 2 cameras were ordered alongside 483 TASER X2 conducted energy weapons.
Sources: Police1 via Axon, ACT Policing joins the Axon network (Mar 2019)iTnews, Canberra cops increase scope of body camera use (Aug 2019)
ACT Government Public Safety CCTV Network
The territory government directly owns and operates the Public Safety CCTV Network covering public places in Canberra.
Source: the public record. Australian police-force and government publications, regulator decisions, and Victorian Government open data (Road Safety Camera Network dataset); per-entry citations on each record · retrieved July 2026