Putnam County
County record. Includes every city and agency within Putnam 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
Putnam County Sheriff's Office
The Putnam County Sheriff's Office operates 11 Flock Safety automated license plate readers as of September 2025.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Pittsboro Police Department
The Putnam 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
Cookeville Police Department
The Cookeville Police Department operates 10 Flock Safety automated license plate readers as of September 2025.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Pittsboro Police Department
The U.S. Department of Justice awarded $120,000 to the Cookeville Police Department 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
Algood Police Department
The Algood Police Department operates two Flock Safety automated license plate readers as of September 2025.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Pittsboro Police Department
Monterey Police Department
The Monterey Police Department operates three Flock Safety automated license plate readers as of September 2025.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Pittsboro Police Department
Source: EFF Atlas of Surveillance (Electronic Frontier Foundation & University of Nevada, Reno — Reynolds School of Journalism) · CC BY 4.0 · retrieved July 2026