Fairfield County
County record. Includes every city and agency within Fairfield 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
Pickerington Police Department
The Pickerington Police Department received $43,036 from the Ohio Department of Public Safety to purchase body-worn cameras in 2026.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Ohio State GovernorOhio State Governor
Fairfield County Sheriff's Office
The Fairfield County Sheriff's Office received a $52,987 grant to purchase body-worn cameras in 2025 from the Ohio Office of Criminal Justice Services.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Ohio Department of Public SafetyGovernor Mike DeWine's X account
The Fairfield County Sheriff's Office began developing a drone program in 2018.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Lancaster Eagle GazetteLancaster Eagle Gazette
Carroll Police Department
The Carroll Police Department received a $11,888 grant to purchase body-worn cameras in 2025 from the Ohio Office of Criminal Justice Services.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Ohio Department of Public SafetyGovernor Mike DeWine's X account
Lancaster Police Department
The Lancaster Police Department received a 2022 US Bureau of Justice Assistance grant of $11,586 for its body-worn camera program.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Bureau of Justice Assistance, US Department of Justice
Source: EFF Atlas of Surveillance (Electronic Frontier Foundation & University of Nevada, Reno — Reynolds School of Journalism) · CC BY 4.0 · retrieved July 2026