Itasca County
County record. Includes every city and agency within Itasca 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
Grand Rapids Police Department
The Grand Rapids Police Department has 21 Axon body-worn cameras, according to a 2024 audit.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): City of Grand Rapids - Grand Rapids Police DepartmentRampart Audit LLC
The Grand Rapids Police Department has an unmanned aerial vehicle program, according to a 2021 report from the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension
Itasca County Sheriff
The Itasca County Sheriff operated drones as of 2023.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Minnesota Department of Public Safety
Coleraine Police Department
Coleraine Police Department received $6,000 to purchase three body-worn cameras through the Small, Rural and Tribal Body-Worn Camera program in 2024.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): SRT BWC Program
Nashwauk Police Department
The Nashwauk Police Department has four Axon body-worn cameras, according to a 2023 audit.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): City of Nashwauk - Nashwauk Police DepartmentRampart Audit LLC
Spring Lake Police Department
The Spring Lake Police Department operates two automated license plate readers.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): State of Minnesota
Source: EFF Atlas of Surveillance (Electronic Frontier Foundation & University of Nevada, Reno — Reynolds School of Journalism) · CC BY 4.0 · retrieved July 2026