Fairfax County
County record. Includes every city and agency within Fairfax 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
Fairfax County Police Department
The Fairfax County Police operates a cell-site simulator, according to 2024 data submitted to the state of Virginia.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): MuckRock
The Fairfax County Police Department uses gunshot detection technology, according to 2024 data.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): MuckRock
The Fairfax County Police Department launched a real-time crime center in 2024.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Gazette-Leader
The Fairfax County Police Department began using Flock Safety automated license plate readers in 2023.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Fairfax TimesPatch
The Fairfax County Police Department uses MorphoBIS Face Detective software.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Fairfax County
The Fairfax County Police Department purchased 1,210 body-worn cameras in 2019,
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Washington PostWTOP TVInside Nova
The Fairfax County Police Department maintains a camera registry via Axon.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Axon
Vienna Police Department
The Vienna Police Department uses automated license plate readers, according to 2024 data.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): MuckRock
The Vienna Police Department began its body-worn camera program in May 2022. The agency requested to use $223,732 in American Rescue Plan Act funds for a five-year body-worn camera program.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): InsideNovaFFX Now
Herndon Police Department
The Herndon Police Department uses automated license plate readers, according to 2024 data.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): MuckRock
Source: EFF Atlas of Surveillance (Electronic Frontier Foundation & University of Nevada, Reno — Reynolds School of Journalism) · CC BY 4.0 · retrieved July 2026