📡 Data & IoT

ConnectAtlanta / Video Integration Center

Atlanta Police Department's real-time crime center — an outgrowth of the Atlanta Police Foundation's 2007 Operation Shield camera network — has run on Fusus software (Axon) since 2021, stitching APD's own cameras together with tens of thousands of privately registered business and doorbell cameras into one searchable live map officers can pull up before they arrive at a scene. The Atlanta Police Foundation paid for the software at no cost to the city; by 2025 roughly 17,000 registered cameras required a police request while about 29,000 integrated cameras gave direct feed access. A 2024 Comparitech survey found Atlanta has the highest camera density of any large US city (about 124 per 1,000 residents), and the ACLU of Georgia has campaigned for oversight legislation, warning the network enables 'near-constant, suspicion-less monitoring' with no independent audit of its actual effect on crime.

Live 📅 since 2021

🤖 AI-generated summary of the sources below — how this works · 🔎 Last verified 2026-08-02

📡 Data & IoT Safety & security Sensors & IoT Artificial intelligence

📊 Impact

Comparitech's 2024 citywide camera-density survey found Atlanta has about 124 cameras per 1,000 residents — the highest of any large US city — driven largely by ConnectAtlanta's private-camera integration; no independent study has evaluated the network's effect on crime clearance or prevention.

🎓 Lesson

A camera network's growth is easy to measure and its crime impact is not — Atlanta can quantify its surveillance footprint precisely while having no independent evaluation of what that footprint actually does to crime.

Evidence📊 Independent

Scale🏙️ City-wide

FundingAtlanta Police Foundation (private nonprofit); free to the city

📖 Terms in this entry: Adaptive traffic signals · ANPR (automatic number-plate recognition) · CBTC (communications-based train control)

Sources

↗ AJC, "'A game-changer': Atlanta police hope new camera network will help solve, reduce crime"Fusus partnership start (fall 2021), operator, funding by Atlanta Police Foundation, camera counts as of 2021-2022

↗ SaportaReport, "Atlanta and AI-powered surveillance"2025 camera counts (~17,000 registered / ~29,000 integrated), cites Comparitech 2024 density figure, ACLU of Georgia criticism

↗ ACLU of Georgia, "Protect our Privacy" campaigncivil-liberties criticism, call for oversight legislation

↗ EFF, "Neighborhood Watch Out: Cops Are Using Fusus..."national context on Fusus real-time crime networks

This overview was generated with AI from the public sources listed above and checked against them before publication. It has not had a complete human fact-check — treat it as a starting point and follow the sources.

Continue exploring

Compare this project

🇺🇸 Dallas Police Real-Time Crime Center & CONNECT DALLAS Camera Registry · Dallas Same crime-center model: Atlanta stitches in private doorbell/business cameras via Fusus, Dallas relies on its own department cameras. 🇧🇷 Muralha BH: Citywide Facial-Recognition and License-Plate Camera Network · Belo Horizonte Both are fast-growing AI camera networks with facial recognition and ANPR, added outside normal budgets, with no independent crime study. 🇿🇦 Vumacam: Johannesburg's Privately Owned Camera and Plate-Reading Network · Johannesburg Both surveillance networks run on private money (a police foundation, a subscription vendor) with no independent audit of crime impact.

Explore the wider context

📟 A Reading Is Not a Decision 🛡️ Safety & security guide 🏙️ Atlanta city profile 📡 Data & IoT projects

📎 Cite this project

1001 Smart Cities (2026). “ConnectAtlanta / Video Integration Center” — Atlanta, United States. The Smart City Atlas. https://1001smartcities.org/projects/atlanta-connect-camera-network/ (last verified 2026-08-02). Data: CC BY 4.0.

The underlying data is free to reuse with attribution — see the open data page.

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