Prince William County
County record. Includes every city and agency within Prince William 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
Prince William County Police Department
The Prince William County Police Department uses automated license plate readers, according to 2024 data.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): MuckRock
The Prince William County Police Department uses face recognition technology, according to 2024 data.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): MuckRock
In 2017, the Prince William County Police Department signed a 5-year contract to use Axon body-worn cameras with approximately 470 officers, including all patrol and school resource officers, motor units, and K9 officers. The project costs $700,000 per year.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): WAMUPrince William County Virginia
The Prince William County Police Department maintains a voluntary registry of private and personal surveillance cameras through Motorola Solutions' CityProtect platform.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): CityProtect
Prince William County Police
The Prince William County Police uses gunshot detection technology, according to 2024 data.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): MuckRock
Haymarket Police Department
The Haymarket Police Department uses body-worn cameras.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): ACLUHaymarket 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