Tompkins County
County record. Includes every city and agency within Tompkins 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
Tompkins County Sheriff's Office
The Tompkins County Sheriff's Office operates Flock Safety automated license plate readers.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): 14850.com
Cayuga Heights Police Department
The Cayuga Heights Police Department uses Flock Safety automated license plate readers.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Flock Safety
Trumansburg Police Department
The Trumansburg Village Police Depatment entered a three-year contract for Flock Safety automated license plate readers at a cost of $38,100.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Ithaca.com
Ithaca Police Department
The Ithaca Police Department installed 20 Flock Safety automated license plate readers.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Ithaca VoiceCity of Ithaca
The Ithaca Police Department began using body-worn cameras in 2015.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Ithaca Journal
Ithaca College Office of Public Safety and Emergency Management
The Ithaca College Office of Public Safety and Emergency Management has used body-worn cameras since 2017.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): IC News
Cornell University Police
The Cornell University Police equipped all uniformed officers with body-worn cameras in 2017.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Cornell Chronicle
Source: EFF Atlas of Surveillance (Electronic Frontier Foundation & University of Nevada, Reno — Reynolds School of Journalism) · CC BY 4.0 · retrieved July 2026