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

2 rows where ledger = "sv:face:dataworks" and state = "OH" sorted by amount descending

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vendor 1

state 1

ledger 1

  • sv:face:dataworks · 2 ✖
Link rowid vendor city state spend_date product amount ▲ quote source_document mytown_record ledger amount_type dup_rank geo_suspect anomaly state_norm
4325 4325 DataWorks Plus Columbus OH 2015-06-08 mugshot database maintenance (enter into contract) 40684.0 To authorize and direct the Director of Public Safety to enter into contract with DataWorks Plus for maintenance services, support, and upgrades to the Mugshot Database system for the Division of Police in accordance with the provisions of sole source procurement, to authorize the expenditure of $40,684.00 from the Law Enforcement Seizure Fund; and to declare an emergency. ($40,684.00) http://legistar3.granicus.com/Columbus/meetings/2015/6/5381_M_Columbus_City_Council_15-06-08_Minutes_-_Final.pdf https://mytown.theboringparts.com/city/columbus/#m144710 sv:face:dataworks stated 1 0 0 OH
4326 4326 DataWorks Plus Columbus OH 2016-02-29 mugshot system maintenance (approve contract) 19495.0 To authorize the Director of the Department of Technology and the Director of the Department of Public Safety to enter into a contract with DataWorks Plus, LLC for maintenance and support services associated with the Mugshot Database system in accordance with the sole source provisions of the Columbus City Code; to authorize the expenditure of $19,495.40 from the Department of Technology, Information Services Operating Fund; and to declare an emergency ($19,495.40) http://legistar3.granicus.com/Columbus/meetings/2016/2/5451_M_Columbus_City_Council_16-02-29_Minutes_-_Final.pdf https://mytown.theboringparts.com/city/columbus/#m144662 sv:face:dataworks stated 1 0 0 OH

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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);