Worcester County
County record. Includes every city and agency within Worcester 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
Snow Hill Police Department
The Snow Hill Police Department uses Axon body-worn cameras. The agency received a $4,128 grant from the Local Government Insurance Trust to purchase new equipment in 2017.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Bayside GazetteSnow Hill Police Department Facebook
Berlin Police Department
The Berlin Police Department received a Small, Rural, and Tribal Body-Worn Camera Program grant for $2,000 for 1 body-worn cameras in 2023.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Justice & Security StrategiesJustice & Security Strategies
Worcester County Sheriff’s Office
The Worcester County Sheriff’s Office uses Axon body-worn cameras.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Ocean City TodayWorcester County Sheriff’s Office
Ocean City Police Department
The Ocean City Council apporoved a $2.4 million contract with Axon for body-worn cameras, among other things, in December 2021.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): The Dispatch
In 2018, the Ocean City Police Department scanned 15,156,957 license plates using automated license plate readers. The police have one mobile unit and 12 cameras at fixed locations.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Maryland House Judiciary Committee DisclosureCapital News Service
The Ocean City Police Department maintains a voluntary registry of private and personal surveillance cameras.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Ocean City
Pocomoke City Police Department
The Pocomoke City Police Department began using body-worn cameras in 2013.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): WBOCPocomoke City Police Department Facebook
The Pocomoke City Police Department maintains a voluntary registry of private and personal surveillance cameras through Motorola Solutions' CityProtect platform.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): CityProtect
Ocean Pines Police Department
The Ocean Pines Police Department operates one DJI Mavic drone as of 2019, 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.wboc.com
Source: EFF Atlas of Surveillance (Electronic Frontier Foundation & University of Nevada, Reno — Reynolds School of Journalism) · CC BY 4.0 · retrieved July 2026