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 = "MD" and vendor = "Verkada" sorted by amount descending

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vendor 1

  • Verkada · 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
2707 2707 Verkada Bel Air MD 2025-04-21 security camera system (budget) 491000.0 For the Police Department, $491,000 will cover three vehicle replacements and a new vehicle, lease of the remote surveillance camera trailer, two automated speed signs, and the Verkada security camera system. https://www.belairmd.org/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Minutes/_04212025-1021 https://mytown.theboringparts.com/city/belairmd.org/2025/#m1346366 sv:camera:verkada stated 1 0 0 MD
2706 2706 Verkada Bel Air MD 2025-04-07 CCTV system (budget) 226000.0 Mr. Hopkins highlighted his request to install a Verkada CCTV system at a cost of $226,000. https://www.belairmd.org/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Minutes/_04072025-1016 https://mytown.theboringparts.com/city/belairmd.org/2025/#m1346369 sv:camera:verkada stated 1 0 0 MD
2708 2708 Verkada Bel Air MD 2026-04-06 Command Connect (budget) 50000.0 $50,000 has been alloted for the Verkada Command Connect https://www.belairmd.org/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Minutes/_04062026-1143 https://mytown.theboringparts.com/city/belairmd.org/#m1346216 sv:camera:verkada stated 1 0 0 MD

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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);