New Hanover County

County record. Includes every city and agency within New Hanover County.

5 Deployments on record
2 Agencies
5 Technology categories

Technology presence

ALPR · 1 Fixed cameras & RTCC · none on record Face recognition · 1 Drones / UAS · 1 Gunshot detection · 1 Body-worn & dashcam · 1 Doorbell & camera registry · none on record Cell-site simulators · none on record Predictive policing · none on record Social-media monitoring · none on record
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

Carolina Beach Police Department

Carolina Beach · 3 deployments · last documented Sep 2025 · on UnGovr: Town of Carolina Beach

ALPR Vendor: Flock Safety

The Carolina Beach Police Department operates two Flock Safety automated license plate readers as of September 2025.

Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Pittsboro Police Department

Body-worn & dashcam

Carolina Beach Police Department received $44,000 to purchase 22 body-worn cameras through the Small, Rural and Tribal Body-Worn Camera program in 2024.

Sources (via the EFF Atlas): SRT BWC Program

Face recognition Vendor: Flock Safety

In 2022, the Carolina Beach Police Department entered a 16-month agreement with Clearview AI for unlimited department users at a cost of $8,995.

Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Carolina Beach

Wilmington Police Department

Wilmington · 2 deployments · last documented Jun 2025 · on UnGovr: City of Wilmington

Drones / UAS Vendor: DJI

The Wilmington Police Department planned to spend $220,354 to transition its Southeastern Airborne Law Enforcement program to drones in 2024.

Sources (via the EFF Atlas): City of WilmingtonWECT6Wilmington Police Department

Gunshot detection Vendor: ShotSpotter

The Wilmington Police Department has been using ShotSpotter gunshot detection technology since 2012.

Sources (via the EFF Atlas): WECT 6 News

Source: EFF Atlas of Surveillance (Electronic Frontier Foundation & University of Nevada, Reno — Reynolds School of Journalism) · CC BY 4.0 · retrieved July 2026