Watonwan County
County record. Includes every city and agency within Watonwan 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
Madelia Police Department
The Madelia Police Department has five Motorola body-worn cameras, according to a 2024 audit.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Minn. Legislature - Legislative Commission on Data PracticesLynn Lembcke ConsultingMadelia Police DepartmentMinn. Legislature - Legislative Commission on Data PracticesLynn Lembcke ConsultingMadelia Police Department
Watonwan County Sheriff's Office
The Watonwan County Sheriff's Office has 10 WatchGuard body-worn cameras, according to a 2023 audit.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Lynn Lembcke ConsultingWatonwan County - Watonwan County Sheriff's Office
St. James Police Department
The St. James Police Department has eight WatchGuard body-worn cameras, according to a 2023 audit.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): City of St. James - St. James Police DepartmentLynn Lembcke Consulting
Source: EFF Atlas of Surveillance (Electronic Frontier Foundation & University of Nevada, Reno — Reynolds School of Journalism) · CC BY 4.0 · retrieved July 2026