Durham County
County record. Includes every city and agency within Durham 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
Durham Police Department
The Durham Police Department signed a one-year contract with ShotSpotter for gunshot detection technology in 2022.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Spectrum News 1City of Durham
The Durham Police Department began using Flock automated license plate readers in 2019.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): WRALDurham Police Department
In 2017, the Durham Police Department bought six mobile face recognition systems for $38,400.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): MuckRock
The Durham Police Department has used predictive policing software since at least 2016.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Durham Police Department
Durham County Sheriff's Office
The Durham County Sheriff's Office began using body-worn cameras in 2022.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Durham County Sheriff
University of New Hampshire Police Department
The University of New Hampshire Police Department uses Axon body-worn cameras.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): PoliceMagUNH Police Facebook page
Source: EFF Atlas of Surveillance (Electronic Frontier Foundation & University of Nevada, Reno — Reynolds School of Journalism) · CC BY 4.0 · retrieved July 2026