City of Framingham
Middlesex County · Massachusetts
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
Framingham Police Department
The Framingham Police Department received a $17,987 grant from the state of Massachusetts for body-worn cameras in 2024. The agency also received a $211,300 grant in 2023.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Commonwealth of Massachusetts WebsiteMassachusetts Executive Office of Public Safety and Security
The Framingham Police Department in Massachusetts received a $122,725 grant from the U.S. Department of Justice's Kevin and Avonte program to acquire drones.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Patch
The Framingham Police Department uses Flock Safety automated license plate reades.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Flock Safety
The Framingham Police Department's SafeCam program is a voluntary registry of private and personal surveillance cameras.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): City of Framingham
Massachusetts State Police
The Massachusetts State Police purchased a cell-site simulator in 2024.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): The Shoestring
The Massachusetts State Police has been using body-worn cameras since 2021.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Boston 25 NewsMass LiveWWLP
The Massachusetts State Police Department operates five drones as of 2016, according to data compiled by the Center for the Study of the Drone at Bard College.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Center for the Study of the Drone at Bard College
Source: EFF Atlas of Surveillance (Electronic Frontier Foundation & University of Nevada, Reno — Reynolds School of Journalism) · CC BY 4.0 · retrieved July 2026