Philadelphia County

County record. Includes every city and agency within Philadelphia County.

4 Deployments on record

2 Agencies

4 Technology categories

Technology presence

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

Philadelphia Police Department

Philadelphia · 3 deployments · last documented Dec 2020 · on UnGovr: City of Philadelphia

Cell-site simulators Vendor: Tactical Support Equipment

The Philadelphia Police Department purchased a cell-site simulator from Tactical Support Equipment in 2020 for $400,532.

Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Philadelphia Department of Commerce

Drones / UAS

The Philadelphia Police Department SWAT operates one drone as of 2020, according to data compiled by the Center for the Study of the Drone at Bard College.

Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Center for the Study of the Drone at Bard College www.faa.gov

Fixed cameras & RTCC

The Philadelphia Police Department's Delaware Valley Intelligence Center includes a real-time crime center with access to more than 1,800 surveillance cameras, automated license plate readers and 14 police databases.

Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Philadelphia Police Department Technical.ly CBS Philly

Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority Transit Police

Philadelphia · 1 deployment · last documented Jan 2019

Body-worn & dashcam

The U.S. Department of Justice awarded $500,000 to the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority Transit Police in 2019 as part of the Bureau of Justice Assistance's body-worn camera grant program.

Sources (via the EFF Atlas): U.S 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