Darlington County
County record. Includes every city and agency within Darlington 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
Darlington County Sheriff's Office
The Darlington County Sheriff's Office received a total of $116831.26 in state funding for body-worn cameras in fiscal years 2018-2020.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): South Carolina Department of Public SafetySouth Carolina Department of Public SafetySouth Carolina Department of Public Safety
Darlington Police Department
The Darlington Police Department received a total of $85522.15 in state funding for body-worn cameras in fiscal years 2020-2022.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): South Carolina Department of Public SafetySouth Carolina Department of Public SafetySouth Carolina Department of Public Safety
Lamar Police Department
The Lamar Police Department received $13730 in state funding for body-worn cameras in fiscal year 2019.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): South Carolina Department of Public SafetySouth Carolina Department of Public SafetySouth Carolina Department of Public Safety
Society Hill Police Department
The Society Hill Police Department received $1395 in state funding for body-worn cameras in fiscal year 2023.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): South Carolina Department of Public SafetySouth Carolina Department of Public SafetySouth Carolina Department of Public Safety
Darlington County Sheriff’s Office
The Darlington County Sheriff’s Office uses automated license plate readers as part of a statewide program managed by the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): The Post and CourierMuckRock
Hartsville Police Department
The Hartsville Police Department purchased body-worn cameras in 2016 with a $10,800 grant through the South Carolina Department of Public Safety.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): The Berkeley Observer
Source: EFF Atlas of Surveillance (Electronic Frontier Foundation & University of Nevada, Reno — Reynolds School of Journalism) · CC BY 4.0 · retrieved July 2026