surveillance_spending

A DISCOVERY INDEX of surveillance and police-technology dollar figures found in local government meeting records across 130+ named vendors — NOT a table of confirmed spending, and NOT safe to SUM. An audit on 2026-07-29 found aggregate views were adding amounts that must not be added: the same procurement recurs at committee, council, approval, amendment and renewal stages; "not to exceed" figures are authorization ceilings, not payments. Use the canned query "the CONSERVATIVE total" for any number you intend to publish, and "data-quality report" to see what is flagged. Columns added for this: `amount_type` (stated / ceiling / proposed / recommended / estimated), `dup_rank` (>1 = redundant copy), `geo_suspect` (city disagrees with the source link), `anomaly` (implausible figure), `state_norm` (normalized state). Vendors covered include ALPR (Flock, Vigilant, Genetec), body cameras/tasers (Axon, WatchGuard, Utility, Getac), gunshot detection (ShotSpotter/SoundThinking), face recognition (Clearview AI, DataWorks Plus), fingerprint biometrics (Idemia AFIS/Livescan, filed separately under `sv:biometrics`), data fusion and OSINT (Fusus, Peregrine, LexisNexis Accurint, Thomson Reuters CLEAR), phone forensics (Cellebrite, GrayKey, Magnet), drones (Skydio, BRINC, DJI), cameras/VMS (Verkada, Avigilon), cell-site simulators, CAD/RMS records systems, photo enforcement, jail-call and student monitoring. Every row carries a VERBATIM quote from the minutes and a link to the source document, and a row only publishes if that quote was found character-for-character in the source text. READ THE `ledger` COLUMN: `sv:<category>:<vendor>`. `radio_infra` (two-way radios), `rms` (records/CAD software), `biometrics` (fingerprints) and `not_surveillance` are NOT surveillance sensors — exclude them before quoting any surveillance figure.

Data license: CC BY 4.0 · Data source: MyTown

4 rows where ledger = "sv:alpr:platesmart" and state = "PA" sorted by amount descending

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Suggested facets: city, product, amount, amount_type, spend_date (date)

vendor 1

state 1

ledger 1

  • sv:alpr:platesmart · 4 ✖
Link rowid vendor city state spend_date product amount ▲ quote source_document mytown_record ledger amount_type dup_rank geo_suspect anomaly state_norm
2516 2516 PlateSmart Jefferson Hills PA 2026-03-04 ALPR software & cameras (ratify contract) 4241.0 Motion to ratify a 2-year subscription agreement between Cyclops Technologies d/b/a Platesmart Technologies and the Jefferson Hills Police Department (JHPD), which would permit the JHPD to utilize proprietary license plate recognition software called “Platesmart”, which included licenses for 8-Automated License Plate Reader (ALPR) cameras and the use of “Platesmart Vision” software for monitoring, recording and playback of 8-intersection cameras during the term of the agreement, with a subscription fee of $4,241.00 in year 2026 and a subscription fee of $4,388.00 in 2027 as recommended by the https://www.jeffersonhillsboro.org/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Minutes/_03042026-226 https://mytown.theboringparts.com/city/jeffersonhillsboro.org/#m1560041 sv:alpr:platesmart recommended 1 0 0 PA
4257 4257 PlateSmart Pittsburgh PA 2026-03-18 PlateSmart software (purchase) 2850.0 Cyclops Technologies – PlateSmart software 2,850.00 https://pittsburgh.legistar1.com/pittsburgh/meetings/2026/3/11910_M_Standing_Committees_26-03-18_Meeting_Minutes.pdf https://mytown.theboringparts.com/city/pittsburgh/#m335849 sv:alpr:platesmart stated 1 0 0 PA
4265 4265 PlateSmart Pittsburgh PA 2025-03-19 PlateSmart software (purchase) 2500.0 Cyclops Technologies – PlateSmart software 2,500.00 https://pittsburgh.legistar1.com/pittsburgh/meetings/2025/3/11495_M_Standing_Committee_25-03-19_Meeting_Minutes.pdf https://mytown.theboringparts.com/city/pittsburgh/2025/#m335623 sv:alpr:platesmart stated 1 0 0 PA
4267 4267 PlateSmart Pittsburgh PA 2024-03-25 ALPR subscription (approve invoice) 2500.0 Cyclops Technologies – Platesmart subscription 2,500.00 https://pittsburgh.legistar1.com/pittsburgh/meetings/2024/3/11131_M_Standing_Committee_24-03-25_Meeting_Minutes.pdf https://mytown.theboringparts.com/city/pittsburgh/2024/#m335418 sv:alpr:platesmart stated 1 0 0 PA

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CREATE TABLE surveillance_spending (
  vendor TEXT, city TEXT, state TEXT, spend_date TEXT, product TEXT,
  amount REAL, quote TEXT, source_document TEXT, mytown_record TEXT, ledger TEXT, amount_type TEXT, dup_rank INTEGER, geo_suspect INTEGER, anomaly INTEGER, state_norm TEXT);
CREATE INDEX ix_surv_vendor ON surveillance_spending(vendor);
CREATE INDEX ix_surv_state ON surveillance_spending(state);
CREATE INDEX ix_surv_amount ON surveillance_spending(amount);
CREATE INDEX ix_surv_ledger ON surveillance_spending(ledger);