California
Sacramento County
On record
Checked 20 Aug 2026- Technologies
- 2
- Systems
- 3
- Devices mapped
- 827
Sacramento County, California. Device data © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL), with community reporting via DeFlock. Open the full map →
Sacramento County is one of the few counties in California where an outside body has examined local plate reader practice in public and written down what it found. The 2023-2024 grand jury spent seven months on it, read the policies of six agencies, and concluded that two of them had shared plate data outside California contrary to state law. One of those findings is written in the past tense and one in the present.
The report is unusually useful because it names deadlines. Agencies were asked to post policies, run audits and stop sharing by dates in 2024 and 2025. What we cannot yet tell you is whether any of that happened: the written responses the law required are not something we have read, and the plate reader policy the Sheriff’s Office publishes today still carries a 2016 revision mark.
Three systems have pages here: the Sheriff’s plate readers, the city police department’s plate readers, and the Sheriff’s voluntary registry of private security cameras. All three rest on the grand jury report and the office’s own published documents.
Everything else in this county is unread. Sacramento’s real-time crime centre, its drones and its gunshot detection contract, Elk Grove’s drone-as-first-responder programme, Citrus Heights’ camera grant, and the two fusion centres based here have not been researched. Three city websites refused our requests outright, and no council or board agenda has been read at all.
What's in use here
A grand jury spent seven months on this system and found the office had shared plate data outside California, contrary to state law. The policy published on the office's own website still carries a 2016 revision mark and still says sharing is automatic.
Of the six agencies a grand jury reviewed in this county, five were found to comply with the law on sharing plate data. This is the sixth. The finding against it is written in the present tense.
Residents and businesses register where their own security cameras are, and the office emails them when a crime happens nearby. It is a mailing list, not a camera network, and the difference is worth being precise about.
Who runs it
The agency is the accountability unit: who voted, whose policy applies, and who answers a records request.
| Agency | Jurisdiction | Systems |
|---|---|---|
| Sacramento County Sheriff's Office | Sacramento County | 2 |
| Sacramento Police Department | City of Sacramento | 1 |
| 2 agencies on record. A jointly run system counts against each of its operators, so this column is not a county total. | ||
Trackers
Meetings, contracts, records
Nothing listed yet. The trackers launch here, and facts appear only with their sources.
How the inventory works →What you can do
Civic action
Show up
Public comment is open to any resident, and you do not have to be an expert to use it. We have not yet confirmed where the bodies that decide for Sacramento County meet. How the inventory works explains what we check and how to check it yourself.
How the inventory works →Personal protection
Protect yourself
Practical steps to shrink your personal data trail. Our guides publish at launch; until then, EFF's Surveillance Self-Defense is the best starting point.
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