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

5 rows where ledger = "sv:rms:centralsquare" and state = "SC" sorted by amount descending

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Suggested facets: city, geo_suspect, spend_date (date)

vendor 1

state 1

ledger 1

  • sv:rms:centralsquare · 5 ✖
Link rowid vendor city state spend_date product amount ▲ quote source_document mytown_record ledger amount_type dup_rank geo_suspect anomaly state_norm
3449 3449 CentralSquare Charleston SC 2023-12-05 RMS maintenance (renew) 287487.0 Approval of the renewal of the Police Department’s Records Management System (RMS) annual maintenance and support in the amount of $287,487.21 with Central Square Technologies, sole source vendor. https://www.charleston-sc.gov/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Minutes/_12052023-8787 https://mytown.theboringparts.com/city/charleston-sc.gov/2023/#m486481 sv:rms:centralsquare stated 1 0 0 SC
3858 3858 CentralSquare Columbia SC 2026-06-16 RMS licenses (renew) 264803.0 e. Records Management System / Field Based Reporting / Mobile licenses, as requested by the Columbia Police Department on May 15, 2026. Central Square Technologies Lake Mary, FL Annual renewal (7/1/2026 - 6/30/2027) $264,803.63 https://columbiasc.api.civicclerk.com/v1/Meetings/GetMeetingFileStream(fileId=6862,plainText=false) https://mytown.theboringparts.com/city/columbiasc/#m72201 sv:rms:centralsquare stated 1 0 0 SC
4095 4095 CentralSquare York County SC 2021-10-04 maintenance (renew) 239837.0 Council to authorize the renewal of maintenance with Central Square Technologies in the amount of $239,837.36. https://yorkcosc.api.civicclerk.com/v1/Meetings/GetMeetingFileStream(fileId=2039,plainText=false) https://mytown.theboringparts.com/city/yorkcosc/2021/#m783906 sv:rms:centralsquare stated 1 1 0 SC
4243 4243 CentralSquare Columbia SC 2021-08-03 RMS software maintenance (renew) 221176.0 Award to Tritech Software Systems, a CentralSquare Company, in the amount of $221,176.92. https://columbiasc.api.civicclerk.com/v1/Meetings/GetMeetingFileStream(fileId=791,plainText=false) https://mytown.theboringparts.com/city/columbiasc/2021/#m459943 sv:rms:centralsquare stated 1 0 0 SC
3448 3448 CentralSquare Charleston SC 2025-01-28 RMS maintenance (amend) 26264.0 Approval of additional, corrected tax in the amount of $26,264.76 for prior approved renewal of Police Department’s Records Management System (RMS) annual maintenance and support with Central Square Technologies. https://www.charleston-sc.gov/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Minutes/_01282025-9789 https://mytown.theboringparts.com/city/charleston-sc.gov/2025/#m486741 sv:rms:centralsquare stated 1 0 0 SC

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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);