Carroll County
County record. Includes every city and agency within Carroll 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
Sykesville Police Department
The Sykesville Police Department uses Motorola body-worn cameras.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Sykesville Police Department FacebookFOX 45 NEWS
Hampstead Police Department
The Hampstead Police Department uses WatchGuard Vista body-worn cameras.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): The Baltimore SunHampstead Police DepartmentHampstead Police Department, Maryland's Facebook page
Manchester Police Department
The Manchester Police Department uses Axon body-worn cameras. The agency received approval for a six-year contract with Axon -- body-worn camera, digital evidence management systems and new tasers -- at a total cost of $4.2 million.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Manchester Police Department
Westminster Police Department
The Westminster Police Department uses Motorola body-worn cameras.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): The Baltimore SunWestminster Municipal GovernmentWestminster Police Department Facebook
Carroll County Sheriff's Office
The Carroll County Sheriff's Department received a 2022 Bureau of Justice Assistance grant to acquire body-worn cameras.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): US Bureau of Justice Assistance
The Carroll County Sheriff's Office and EMS Department operates four Yuneec drones as of 2017, 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 Collegewww.baltimoresun.com
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
Mount Airy Police Department
The Mount Airy Police Department operates a camera registry via CRIMEWATCH.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): CRIMEWATCH
Source: EFF Atlas of Surveillance (Electronic Frontier Foundation & University of Nevada, Reno — Reynolds School of Journalism) · CC BY 4.0 · retrieved July 2026