Orange County
County record. Includes every city and agency within Orange 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
Pinehurst Police Department
The Pinehurst Police Department received $50,409 towards its body-worn camera program in September 2024 from the Texas Governor's Public Safety Office.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Texas Office of the Governor
West Orange Police Department
The West Orange Police Department received $47,342 towards its body-worn camera program in September 2024 from the Texas Governor's Public Safety Office.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Texas Office of the Governor
Bridge City Police Department
Bridge City Police Department received a Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant of $13,995 for body-worn cameras in 2021.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Office of the Governor, Texas
Orange County Sheriff's Office
The Orange County Sheriff's Office uses automated license plate readers.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Brennan Center for Justice
Orange County Sheriff's Office received a grant from the DOJ to fund the purchase of body-worn cameras.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Commissioner's Court Meeting MinutesOrange County, Texas
The Orange County Sheriff's Office has three drones.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Orange County Sheriff's Office
Source: EFF Atlas of Surveillance (Electronic Frontier Foundation & University of Nevada, Reno — Reynolds School of Journalism) · CC BY 4.0 · retrieved July 2026