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ORWELL INDEX

California

Yuba County

On record

Checked 21 Aug 2026
Technologies
2
Systems
2
Devices mapped
39

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

Yuba is the best-documented county on this site, and it is well documented for a simple reason: the county publishes its board record in a searchable archive and does not put anything in the way of reading it.

The trail runs from 2022 to this month. In April 2022 the Sheriff-Coroner asked the board to approve Flock Safety plate readers at $79,750 for the first year. In August 2025 a consolidated agreement replaced the earlier ones at $138,635, roughly double, bringing “expanded storage retention” that the staff report never quantifies on either side. Both items went straight to the full board rather than through committee, each for a reason the report states.

Then on 11 August 2026 the Undersheriff came and counted the cameras aloud: thirty-three on public roadways, two at Linda Fire Station, three at Grays Beach, forty in total with two not in use. Yuba’s board asked how many cameras there are and got a number, which is more than some counties on this site managed.

Two details about that briefing are on the face of the minutes. The agenda item carried “(No background information)”, so there was nothing for a resident to read beforehand. And the document the board was handed came from the company selling the cameras.

The county’s other surveillance contract is smaller and stranger. In July 2025 the Clerk-Recorder and Registrar of Voters spent $9,541 of federal Help America Vote Act election security money on two years of Flock video surveillance for a single ballot drop box, citing vandalism against drop boxes in Oregon and Washington the year before. It is the only elections office on this site holding a surveillance contract.

Nothing here was concealed. Every figure on these pages came off a public agenda in a searchable archive. What is missing is narrower and more specific: how long the plate reads are kept, and who else can see them.

What's in use here

1 operatorSB 34
  • Active Yuba County Sheriff Updated

    Forty cameras, counted aloud for the board in August 2026. The agenda item carried no background information, and the briefing document came from the company selling them.

1 operator
  • Active Yuba County Elections Updated

    Federal election security money bought two years of video surveillance at one ballot drop box. The county says why, on the face of the item.

Who runs it

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

Agency Jurisdiction Systems
Yuba County Clerk-Recorder and Registrar of Voters Yuba County 1
Yuba County Sheriff's Department Yuba County 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 Yuba 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 ↗

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