Columbia County
County record. Includes every city and agency within Columbia 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
Lake City Police Department
The Lake City Police Department operates 17 Flock Safety automated license plate readers as of September 2025.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Pittsboro Police Department
The Lake City Police Department uses Flock Safety Raven gunshot detection technology.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Gulf Live
The Lake City Police Department uses body-worn cameras, according to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement's 2019 Criminal Justice Agency Profile Report.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Florida Department of Law EnforcementWCJB20
Columbia County Sheriff's Office
The Columbia County Sheriff's Office operates 10 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
The Columbia County Sheriff's Office has a drone program.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Florida Sheriffs AssociationColumbia County Sheriff's Office Website
The Columbia County Sheriff's Office is one of more than 275 law enforcement agencies with access to the Face Analysis Comparison & Examination System (FACES), a face recognition program maintained by the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office. Investigators may upload an image to search more than 25-million Florida driver's license photos and mugshots.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Orlando SentinelCenter on Privacy & Technology at Georgetown LawPinellas County Sheriff's Office
Source: EFF Atlas of Surveillance (Electronic Frontier Foundation & University of Nevada, Reno — Reynolds School of Journalism) · CC BY 4.0 · retrieved July 2026