Butte County
County record. Includes every city and agency within Butte County.
Technology presence
What these categories mean
- ALPR
- Automated license plate readers (ALPR): camera systems that automatically capture, read, and log vehicle license 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. Extends the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Atlas, which enumerates real-time crime centers and camera registries but not standalone fixed-camera estates.
- 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 agency
Butte County Sheriff's Department
The Butte County Sheriff's Department uses Clearview AI face recognition technology.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Butte County Sheriff
The Butte County Sheriff's Office planned to install 12 Flock Safety automated license plate readers in May 2024.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): CEQAnetButte County Sheriff's Office
According to the Butte County Sheriff's 2022 military equipiment report, it operates two Brinc drones and planned to acquire two Autel drones.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Butte County Sheriff's Office
The Butte County Sheriff’s Department has a camera registry.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Butte County Sheriff’s DepartmentButte County Sheriff’s Department YouTube
Oroville Police Department
As of April 2024, the Oroville Police Department operates 35 Flock Safety automated license plate readers. The agency stores ALPR data for 30 days.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Flock SafetyThe News & ObserverThe News & Observer
The Orville Police Department installed 40 automated license plate readers in 2023. The systems are also used for gunshot detection.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Enterprise-Record
The Oroville Police department purchased 20 Vievue body-worn camera in 2018.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Oroville City CouncilOroville Police Department FacebookOroville Police Department
Chico Police Department
The Chico Police Department operates automated license plate readers.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): KCRTVAction News Now
Chico State University Police
The Chico State University Police began using body-worn cameras in 2019.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Chico State University Police webpageThe Orion
Source: EFF Atlas of Surveillance (Electronic Frontier Foundation & University of Nevada, Reno — Reynolds School of Journalism) · CC BY 4.0 · retrieved July 2026