Northern 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
Northern Territory Police
A trial of automatic number plate recognition with enhanced AI platforms for road safety, announced alongside new radar capabilities in an August 2024 media release. No confirmed date for a permanent, force-wide rollout is on record.
Sources: NT Police, Fire and Emergency Services, media release (Aug 2024)
A CASA exemption fast-tracked in December 2024 expanded coverage across the town and surrounding Central Australia for patrols, offender tracking and extended aerial support. A dedicated Drone Unit deployed operationally in Alice Springs from 8 August 2024 as part of Operation Archer against stolen-vehicle offending, working alongside strike force, road policing and dog units.
Sources: NT Police, Fire and Emergency Services, Operation Archer (Aug 2024)Mirage News, improved drone capability for Alice Springs (Dec 2024)
820 officers across Darwin, Alice Springs, Tennant Creek and Katherine were equipped with Axon body-worn cameras from 14 September 2016. The order comprised 720 Axon Body 2 and 100 Axon Flex devices with a three-year Evidence.com subscription; cameras record with a 30-second pre-event buffer and 12-hour battery life. Trials began in early 2014.
Sources: iTnews, Northern Territory cops get body-worn video (Sep 2016)Axon investor release, NT Police deploys 820 body cameras (Sep 2016)
City of Darwin (Switching on Darwin)
The Switching on Darwin project installed 112 CCTV cameras across the Darwin CBD between February 2018 and May 2019, funded with $5 million from the Australian Government and $2.5 million each from the City of Darwin and Northern Territory Government. Camera placement was planned with NT Police and the system uses the same IndigoVision platform NT Police has used since 2009. The council states it does not include facial recognition.
Sources: City of Darwin, Switching on Darwin
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