TL;DR: Monroe County, New York (home to Rochester) passed an ordinance April 15 requiring the sheriff’s office to file quarterly reports on surveillance technology purchases over $100,000. The vote was 21-8. The trigger: legislators discovered a 10-year, $15 million surveillance contract they were never told about. The county has received $24 million in state surveillance grants, operates 157 blue-light cameras, runs a growing drone program, and has KingFish cellular intercept devices. This is one of the first county-level surveillance disclosure laws in the country, and it highlights a blind spot: most of the big surveillance spending happens at the sheriff’s office, not the city police department.
The $15 Million Contract Nobody Mentioned
Monroe County Legislator Rachel Barnhart had a question: when did we agree to spend $15 million on surveillance tech?
The answer: nobody asked you.
The county had signed a 10-year, $15 million contract for surveillance software and equipment for the sheriff’s office. Barnhart and other legislators learned about it after the fact. No legislative vote. No public hearing. No disclosure of what the technology does, who it tracks, or how long it stores data [1].
“It’s hard for me to believe that anyone would think we as a legislative body don’t have the right to automatically know about a 10-year, $15 million contract, particularly when it involves surveillance technology,” Barnhart said [2].
So she wrote a resolution. And on April 15, the Monroe County Legislature passed it 21-8 [2].
What the Ordinance Actually Does
The new rule requires the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office to file quarterly reports with the legislature disclosing any surveillance technology purchase over $100,000. Each report must include [1]:
- A description of the technology
- Its intended use
- The vendor
- The funding source
The ordinance defines “surveillance technology” broadly: “equipment, software, or systems capable of, or used or designed for, collecting, retaining, processing, or sharing audio, video, location, thermal, biometric, or similar information” [1].
That covers ALPR cameras, drones, facial recognition software, cell-site simulators, predictive policing tools, body cameras with AI features: basically the entire modern surveillance toolkit.
What it doesn’t do: require pre-approval. The legislature doesn’t get to vote on whether the sheriff buys the tech. They just get told about it afterward. That makes this weaker than the strongest CCOPS (Community Control Over Police Surveillance) laws in places like San Francisco and Oakland, which require public hearings and council approval before any surveillance tech goes live [3].
The legislature was careful to frame this as pro-transparency, not anti-cop. The resolution states it “is not anti-law enforcement, anti-technology, or a barrier to innovation” and “does not restrict or prohibit the purchase” of surveillance tools [1].
The Eight ‘No’ Votes
Eight legislators voted against even this modest disclosure requirement. Legislator Jackie Smith argued the information is already available through existing county purchasing processes [2].
That argument would carry more weight if the $15 million contract hadn’t blindsided the rest of the legislature. If the existing process worked, Barnhart wouldn’t have needed to write a new law.
Rochester’s Surveillance Arsenal
The ordinance lands in a county that’s already deep into surveillance technology. Monroe County received $24 million in state law enforcement technology grants, the largest amount any single county in New York received [4]. That money split between the Rochester Police Department ($10 million), the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office ($11.7 million), and smaller departments.
Here’s what Rochester and Monroe County are running:
- 157 blue-light surveillance cameras with 24/7 monitoring, upgraded with an $8 million grant to 360-degree coverage. Footage stored for 180 days [4].
- A growing drone program. UAV missions jumped from 13 in 2019 to 73 in 2024. A “Drones as First Responders” pilot launched in 2025, sending drones to 911 calls. The sheriff’s office runs its own separate drone program [4].
- KingFish cellular intercept devices: stingrays that mimic cell towers to vacuum up phone data. Reportedly discontinued as of February 2025, though “reportedly” does a lot of heavy lifting [4].
- Body-worn cameras on officers across the county.
And there’s a racial dimension. The Rochester Police Accountability Board found that blue-light camera concentration is “almost three times greater in census tracts with predominantly Black or Hispanic populations than in predominantly white census tracts” [4]. The cameras watch some neighborhoods far more closely than others.
Why County Sheriffs Are the Surveillance Blind Spot
Most CCOPS laws target city police departments. San Francisco, Oakland, Cambridge, Seattle, New York City: these ordinances focus on city PDs. But county sheriff’s offices are often where the biggest surveillance contracts sit.
Sheriffs run county jails, patrol unincorporated areas, serve warrants across jurisdictions, and cooperate directly with federal agencies like ICE and the DEA. In many counties, the sheriff’s office buys ALPR networks that cover entire regions, aerial surveillance platforms, and data-sharing tools that city PDs can’t afford or justify.
Twenty-six jurisdictions across the US have CCOPS laws, covering nearly 18 million people [3]. But almost all of them target municipal police. County-level sheriff disclosure laws are rare, which is exactly why Monroe County’s ordinance matters.
When cities pass surveillance transparency laws, sheriffs can keep buying and deploying the same technology next door with zero oversight. Monroe County’s ordinance starts to close that gap. Whether other counties follow depends on whether their legislators have similar $15 million surprises waiting for them.
What’s Still Missing
Disclosure is a floor, not a ceiling. Monroe County’s ordinance has real gaps:
- No pre-approval required. The sheriff buys first, reports later. The legislature can’t block a purchase before it happens.
- $100,000 threshold. Plenty of surveillance tools cost less than six figures. A Flock Safety ALPR camera costs around $2,500 per camera per year. A department could deploy dozens without hitting the threshold.
- No public hearing mandate. The quarterly reports go to the legislature, but there’s no requirement for public comment or community input.
- No use restrictions. The law doesn’t limit how the technology can be used, how long data is retained, or who can access it.
Compare that to San Francisco’s CCOPS law, which requires a public process, impact assessments, annual audits, and the ability to revoke approval if the technology is misused [3]. Monroe County’s law is a first step. It’s not the finish line.
What You Can Do
- If you live in Monroe County: Watch for the first quarterly disclosure reports. When they drop, read them. Show up to legislature meetings and ask follow-up questions. The law only works if someone actually reads the reports.
- If you live elsewhere: Check whether your county sheriff’s office has any surveillance disclosure requirements. Odds are it doesn’t. The EFF maintains a CCOPS tracker and model legislation you can bring to your county legislature.
- Look for the grants: New York distributed $24 million in surveillance grants to one county alone. Your state likely has similar programs. FOIA the grant applications: they’ll tell you exactly what your sheriff is buying.
Sources
- Spectrum News 1: Monroe County to Require Disclosure of Sheriff’s Surveillance Technology Purchases, April 15, 2026
- 13WHAM: Monroe County Legislature Orders Sheriff’s Office to Disclose Surveillance Technology Purchases, April 2026
- Electronic Frontier Foundation: Community Control of Police Surveillance (CCOPS)
- Rochester Beacon: Police Surveillance and Privacy, March 26, 2026
Published April 18, 2026