Santa Barbara County
County record. Includes every city and agency within Santa Barbara 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
Lompoc Police Department
The Lompoc Police Department operates 56 Flock Safety automated license plate readers and other cameras as of June 2025. The agency stores ALPR data for 30 days.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Flock Safety
As of April 2021, the Lompoc City Council was deliberating the purchase of body-worn cameras for the local police department.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): City of LompocLompoc Record
Santa Barbara Police Department
As of April 2024, the Santa Barbara Police Department operates 12 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 Santa Barbara Police Department began using Motorola body-worn cameras in 2021.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): City of Santa Barbara created the link. It is a press release.KSBY
Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Department
The Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Office installed 25 Flock Safety automated license plate readers in 2022 as part of a one-year trial.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Edhat
Santa Maria Police Department
The Santa Maria Police Department received city council approval for a three-year contract with Flock Safety for 31 automated license plate readers in 2021.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Santa Maria TimesNoozhawk
The Santa Maria Police Department purchased four drones for $20,000. The agency made its first drone-assisted arrest in 2020.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Santa Maria TimesSanta Maria Police Facebook page
Source: EFF Atlas of Surveillance (Electronic Frontier Foundation & University of Nevada, Reno — Reynolds School of Journalism) · CC BY 4.0 · retrieved July 2026