Rutherford County
County record. Includes every city and agency within Rutherford 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
Murfreesboro Police Department
The Murfreesboro Police Department operates 59 Flock Safety automated license plate readers as of September 2025.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Pittsboro Police Department
The Murfreesboro Police Department uses gunshot detection technology.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): WKRN News 2Murfreesboro Police Department WebsiteWKRN News 2
The Murfreesboro Police Department has a real-time crime center.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Murfreesboro Police Department
Murfreesboro Police Department has a 10-year-and-nine-month contract worth $7,997,384 with Axon for all body and in-car cameras.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Murfreesboro Daily News Journal
Middle Tennessee State University Police Department
The Middle Tennessee State University Police Department operates six Flock Safety automated license plate readers as of September 2025.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Pittsboro Police Department
Smyrna Police Department
The Smyrna Police Department operates 28 Flock Safety automated license plate readers as of September 2025.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Pittsboro Police Department
La Vergne Police Department
The La Vergne Police Department has been using automated license plate readers since at least 2022.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): FOX 17 WZTV Nashville
Rutherford County Sheriff's Office
The Rutherford County Sheriff's Office operates one drone as of 2017, 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.faa.govwww.facebook.com
The Rutherford 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
The Rutherford County Sheriffs' Office received a $199,642 US Bureau of Justice Assistance grant for its body-worn camera program in 2022.
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