Baltimore County
County record. Includes every city and agency within Baltimore 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
Baltimore County Police Department
The Baltimore County Police Department acquired a new cell-site simulator vehicle as of December 2023.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Jacobs TechnologyVocativCapital News Service
The Baltimore County Police Department started using ShotSpotter gunshot detection technology as part of a 2-year pilot program in July 2023.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): WBAL TV
The Baltimore County Police Department agreed to an eight-year $12.5 million contract with Axon in 2017.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Baltimore County Government
In 2018, the Baltimore County Police Department scanned 23,886,915 license plates using automated license plate readers.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Maryland House Judiciary Committee DisclosureCapital News Service
The Maryland State Police and police departments across the Baltimore region — including Anne Arundel, Baltimore, Carroll, Howard and Harford counties — all told the Baltimore Sun that they access the Maryland Image Repository System, which includes face recognition.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Baltimore Sun
Baltimore Police Department
The Baltimore Police Department entered a one-year, $920,000 contract with Cognyte for one cell site simulator in 2025. The agency has used cell-site simulators since 2006.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): GCNVocativCapital News Service
Maryland State Police
In 2018, the Maryland State Police scanned 74,899,090 license plates using automated license plate readers. The agency acquired automated license plate readers as early as 2018.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Maryland House Judiciary Committee DisclosureCircuit Court for Baltimore CityCapital News Service
The Maryland State Police acquired cell-site simulator technology in 2012.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): VocativKevin CollierCapital News Service
Towson University Police Department
In 2018, the Towson University Police Department scanned 3,676,764 license plates using automated license plate readers. The University has a total of 6 fixed ALPR sites with 10 cameras and one mobile unit
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Maryland House Judiciary Committee DisclosureMaryland House Judiciary Committee DisclosureCapital News Service
University of Maryland, Baltimore Police Department
The University of Maryland, Baltimore Police Department planned to launch its body-worn camera program by December 2019.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): University of Maryland, Baltimore Police Department
Source: EFF Atlas of Surveillance (Electronic Frontier Foundation & University of Nevada, Reno — Reynolds School of Journalism) · CC BY 4.0 · retrieved July 2026