Trinity County

The rules here are on the record. Whether there is any equipment for them to govern is not.

The Sheriff’s Office publishes a 728-page policy manual dated June 2026, and unlike two other manuals documented on this site in the past day, it can be read. Searching it works: the word “Policy” appears 1,184 times, “Sheriff” 2,913 times, so a search that finds nothing has actually looked.

It contains a licence plate reader policy, an unmanned aerial system policy and a military equipment policy.

The plate reader policy is better than most on the question that matters most. Most agencies documented here publish a release clause permitting sharing with “law enforcement or prosecutorial agencies” and stopping there, with no geographic limit and no mention of federal or out-of-state recipients. Trinity’s does not stop there:

For purposes of this section, a public agency is limited to California state or local agencies, including law enforcement agencies, and does not include out-of-state or federal law enforcement agencies (Civil Code § 1798.90.5).

That is close to the language the Attorney General sent every law enforcement agency in California in October 2023. Most manuals on this site, including ones released well after that date, still carry the shorter version.

Retention is the standard clause, a minimum of one year, where several other counties have edited theirs down to thirty days.

What is not established is whether Trinity County owns a single camera or aircraft. These manuals are assembled from a vendor’s template, and they carry policies for capabilities an agency may never have acquired. Nothing found in this pass records a count, a contract, a location, a cost or an approving vote, and the Sheriff’s Office publishes no annual military equipment report, which an agency that possessed such equipment would be required to produce.

So this county has no system page. The rules are documented and the equipment is not, and this site does not treat a policy as evidence of a deployment.

The gap is closeable and cheaply. The county’s board record, 541 documents, is already fetched. On the evidence of neighbouring counties, if a purchase happened it will not be under a surveillance heading: in Lassen the decision arrived as a bid award from the Office of Emergency Services, and in Lake as a waiver buried in a purchasing item.