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

3 rows where ledger = "sv:forensics:grayshift" and state = "CA" sorted by amount descending

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vendor 1

state 1

ledger 1

  • sv:forensics:grayshift · 3 ✖
Link rowid vendor city state spend_date product amount ▲ quote source_document mytown_record ledger amount_type dup_rank geo_suspect anomaly state_norm
3795 3795 Grayshift / GrayKey Bakersfield CA 2025-10-22 GrayKey software (amend) 111500.0 (revised not to exceed $111,500, and extend term 1 year) for GrayKey Software, a data extraction forensic tool. https://pub-bakersfield.escribemeetings.com/Meeting.aspx?Id=b136cfd2-a0d8-4592-9c2f-cf16fe1c21ad&Agenda=Agenda&lang=English https://mytown.theboringparts.com/city/pub-bakersfield/2025/#m207660 sv:forensics:grayshift ceiling 1 0 0 CA
3573 3573 Grayshift / GrayKey Salinas CA 2024-02-06 GrayKey software license (approve payment) 33105.0 Resolution authorizing payment of $33,105 to Magnet Forensics for the annual license fee for GrayKey software was approved. https://legistar2.granicus.com/salinas/meetings/2024/2/2555_M_City_Council_24-02-06_Meeting_Minutes.pdf https://mytown.theboringparts.com/city/salinas/2024/#m345208 sv:forensics:grayshift stated 1 0 0 CA
3578 3578 Grayshift / GrayKey Salinas CA 2023-01-10 software subscription (approve) 30795.0 Approve a Resolution authorizing payment of $30,795 for the annual subscription fee for Grayshift software to cover the period January 27, 2023 through January 26, 2024. https://legistar2.granicus.com/salinas/meetings/2023/1/2372_A_City_Council_23-01-10_Meeting_Agenda.pdf https://mytown.theboringparts.com/city/salinas/2023/#m345034 sv:forensics:grayshift stated 1 0 0 CA

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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);