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ORWELL INDEX

Who runs a private camera registry in Santa Cruz County?

What we do not know

Santa Cruz County Sheriff

  • How many addresses are registered, and what the Sheriff's Office can see of them.
  • How the office requests footage from a registered camera, and how often it does.
  • The CryWolf contract itself, and any written policy for the registry.
  • The Ring Neighbors participation status and usage counts after 2023.

What private camera registries are

A list, kept by a police department, of privately owned security cameras and where they are. Officers use it to ask owners for footage. Some registries also let an agency request footage through the camera vendor’s app.

How they work, why agencies buy them, and every county we have documented →

What you can do

Civic action

Show up

This technology is bought and renewed by boards, councils and committees that meet in public. We have not yet confirmed where each of them meets in Santa Cruz County.

Go to the Santa Cruz County hub →

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.

Surveillance Self-Defense ↗