Hamilton County
County record. Includes every city and agency within Hamilton 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
Hamilton County Sheriff's Office
The Hamilton County Sheriff's Office operates five Flock Safety automated license plate readers as of September 2025.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Pittsboro Police Department
The Hamilton County Sheriff's Office operates five DJI drones as of 2016, 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 Collegewww.timesfreepress.com
The Hamilton County Sheriff's Office has access to a predictive analytics system developed by IBM to identify locations where vehicle crashes and DUIs are likely to occur. All 95 county sheriffs in the state access the system, which is managed by the Tennessee Highway Patrol.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland SecurityTennessee Department of Safety and Homeland SecurityFox17
Collegedale Police Department
The Collegedale Police Department operates seven Flock Safety automated license plate readers as of September 2025.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Pittsboro Police Department
Lookout Mountain Police Department
The Lookout Mountain Police Department operates four Flock Safety automated license plate readers as of September 2025.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Pittsboro Police Department
Chattanooga Police Department
The Chattanooga Police Department uses drones. The agency began its drone program in 2022.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Local 3 News
The Chattanooga Police Department equipped 250 officers with Axon body-worn cameras in 2016.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Chattanooga Times Free PressChannel 9 News
Red Bank Police Department
The Red Bank Police Department received $40,000 from the Bureau of Justice Assistance to purchase 20 body-worn cameras through the 2022 Small, Rural, Tribal BWC Microgrant program.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Small, Rural, and Tribal Body-Worn Camera microgrant grantee list
University of Tennesse Chattanooga Police Department
The University of Tennessee Chattanooga Police Department began using Axon body-worn cameras in 2018.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): UTC News ReleasesWRCB
Source: EFF Atlas of Surveillance (Electronic Frontier Foundation & University of Nevada, Reno — Reynolds School of Journalism) · CC BY 4.0 · retrieved July 2026