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 state = "CA" and vendor = "PenLink" sorted by amount descending

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vendor 1

  • PenLink · 3 ✖

state 1

ledger 1

Link rowid vendor city state spend_date product amount ▲ quote source_document mytown_record ledger amount_type dup_rank geo_suspect anomaly state_norm
3403 3403 PenLink Fresno County CA 2023-06-06 software maintenance/support (approve contract) 324644.0 Approve and authorize the Chairman to execute an agreement with Penlink, Ltd. for software and maintenance support, effective June 6, 2023, which includes a three-year and seven-month base contract with one optional one-year extension, total not to exceed $324,644; https://fresnocounty.legistar1.com/fresnocounty/meetings/2023/6/9927_M_Board_of_Supervisors_23-06-06_Action_Summary.pdf https://mytown.theboringparts.com/city/fresnocounty/2023/#m543383 sv:fusion:penlink ceiling 1 0 0 CA
3669 3669 PenLink Fresno CA 2023-01-19 communications-intercept software (purchase) 320000.0 Authorizing the Chief of Police or his Designee to execute a contract with Penlink, Ltd. for the purchase of hardware, software and maintenance services, in the amount of $320,000 without advertised competitive bidding. https://legistar2.granicus.com/fresno/meetings/2023/1/3280_M_City_Council_23-01-19_Meeting_Minutes.pdf https://mytown.theboringparts.com/city/fresno/2023/#m284108 sv:fusion:penlink stated 1 0 0 CA
3404 3404 PenLink Fresno County CA 2024-05-07 software and maintenance support (amend) 61069.0 Approve and authorize the Chairman to execute Amendment I to Agreement A-23-238 with Penlink Ltd. for software and maintenance support, effective upon execution with no change in the term to December 31, 2026, amending the scope of services and increasing the maximum compensation amount by $61,069, to a total of $385,713 https://fresnocounty.legistar1.com/fresnocounty/meetings/2024/5/9958_M_Board_of_Supervisors_24-05-07_Action_Summary.pdf https://mytown.theboringparts.com/city/fresnocounty/2024/#m543359 sv:fusion:penlink 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);