Howard County
County record. Includes every city and agency within Howard 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
Howard County Sheriff's Office
The Howard County Sheriff's Office has a Accurint Virtual Crime Center subscription, which includes predictive policing capabilities.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Howard County
The Howard County Sheriff's Office uses Axon body-worn cameras.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Energetics Technology Center ReportHoward County Sheriff Facebook page
Howard County Police Department
The Howard County Police Department began using drones in January 2020.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Howard County Police DepartmentHoward County Police Department Twitter page
The Howard County Police Department acquired cell-site simulator technology in 2011 and used a cell-site simulator 54 times in 2021.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): VocativKevin CollierHoward County Police
The Howard County Police Department uses Axon body-worn cameras. The agency spent approximately $3.1 million to implement its body-worn camera program in 2019.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Howard County Police Department websiteHoward County Police Department websiteCBS News
In 2018, the Howard County Police Department scanned 2,134,862 license plates using automated license plate readers. The police used seven systems on marked police vehicles and three on unmarked police vehicles.
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
Source: EFF Atlas of Surveillance (Electronic Frontier Foundation & University of Nevada, Reno — Reynolds School of Journalism) · CC BY 4.0 · retrieved July 2026