Skip to content
ORWELL INDEX

California

Shasta County

On record

Checked 18 Aug 2026
Technologies
2
Systems
2
Devices mapped
92

Shasta County, California. Device data © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL), with community reporting via DeFlock. Open the full map →

Shasta County is the fourth county on Orwell Index, and the first large one. Three agencies run license plate readers here: the Sheriff’s Office, the Redding Police Department, and the Anderson Police Department. They use two different vendors, keep data for different lengths of time, and publish three different policies. The county hub assembles the map, the meetings tracker, the contracts tracker, and the records-request log for this county.

What's in use here

1 operatorSB 34
  • Active Redding Police Department Updated

    Redding bought roughly 42 license plate readers in 2020 for $800,000. In 2021 they recorded just over 45 million plate detections in a city of about 93,000 people. The department says the camera locations cannot be released, and a records request released them in 2022.

  • Active Shasta County Sheriff's Office Updated

    SCRAM is a voluntary register of privately owned security cameras. Signing up does not give the Sheriff's Office a view through your camera. It gives the office a map of who owns one, so a deputy can knock and ask you to check your own recording.

Who runs it

The agency is the accountability unit: who voted, whose policy applies, and who answers a records request.

Agency Jurisdiction SB 34 policy Systems
Redding Police Department City of Redding Posted 1
Shasta County Sheriff's Office Shasta County Posted 1
Anderson Police Department City of Anderson Posted 0
3 agencies on record. A jointly run system counts against each of its operators, so this column is not a county total. "Posted" means the policy is published where the law requires it. "On file" means we hold the document. "Not posted" and "not found" mean we could not find it on the agency's own website on the date shown; they say nothing about how the system is used. An agency with a dash has not been checked, which is not a finding.

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 Shasta 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.

Surveillance Self-Defense ↗

Get the digest

A regular digest of what changed in the world of surveillance: the counties we published, the devices that appeared on the map, and the public meetings where these decisions get made. We send it when there is enough to report.

Subscribe to the newsletter

One click to unsubscribe. What we do with your address is on the newsletter page.