The Greensboro Police Foundation performs multiple services for the Greensboro Police Department, including distributing grants for the purchase of technology and equipment for the agency. This includes acquiring 125 body cameras in 2014, a mobile command center in 2015, and, since 2016, an Urban Response Vehicle for deployment in large crowds, a FireArms Training Simulator for the GPD’s Training Academy, and two Mobile Video Trailers whose video footage is fed to the Real Time Information Center.

The Greensboro Police Department has a contract with Flock Safety, an Atlanta-based company, for automated license plate reader cameras (ALPRs). ALPRs are a dragnet surveillance technology as cameras are placed along roadways with the specific intention of scanning every license plate that passes. ALPRs significantly increase police power over criminalized communities.

The Greensboro Police Department has used Flock Safety ALPRs since at least 2021. According to Flock Safety, the company has 20 cameras in Greensboro while GPD can lease and use up to 25 cameras.

Learn more about the extensive harms of ALPRs here.

Connect Greensboro is a program that the Greensboro Police Department offers with surveillance company Fusus. GPD contracted with Fusus for the company's surveillance camera system and their "situational awareness" real time crime center software designed for integration of multiple surveillance technologies into a single map.

Connect Guilford County is a similar program hosted by the Guilford County Sheriff. The Sheriff's Office contracts with Fusus for the same purpose.

Fusus also has a direct to consumer camera sales program which allows Greensboro residents to buy a camera and either register it with GPD or "integrate" the camera's feed into the real time crime center, even allowing GPD real-time access to cameras. Private camera owners with a non-Fusus camera are also able to register and integrate their camera into GPD's camera feed.

Read more about Fusus here.

Currently, drones are used by the Greensboro Police Department, Guilford County Sheriff's Office, North Carolina A&T, University of North Carolina - Greensboro, and the Guilford County Health Department.

The Greensboro Police Department started to push for using drones as early as 2015. The Sheriff's Drone Unit was started in 2016 and now contains at least six drones.

Drones are a great example of a technology that has the potential to be used for a policing function even if a police agency is not the agency using the technology. In the moment of a crisis or emergency, drones can be deployed to expand the policing apparatus.

Drones are aircraft technologies which are remote controlled and do not require a pilot onboard. Police use drones as tools for additional surveillance technology, such as cameras or gunshot detection tools. Increasingly, cities are using “drones as first responders” where drones are immediately dispatched in response to a 911 call. Police have also been known to use drones to monitor protests and other activities that are Constitutionally protected.

According to records obtained via public records requests, the City of Greensboro has paid Cellebrite for the use of the company's cellphone extraction hardware and software. Cellebrite, an Israeli firm, provides tools to police that allow police to hack a phone, basically.

Forensic extraction devices enable police to bypass a cellphone’s security system and copy everything that is saved on a cellphone. If the police collect a cellphone, the officer will just need to plug the extraction device into the phone and either make a full copy of what is stored on the cellphone or selectively save certain data from the cellphone. Once the police have this data, they can use other software to sift through it and identify any highly sensitive information that was saved on the cellphone.

The Greensboro Police Department, Guilford County Sheriff, and North Carolina A&T all operate a "real time crime center." These facilities allow the agency to integrate a variety of surveillance technologies into a single software map interface that allows the agency "situational awareness" of everything that is occurring in their respective jurisdiction.

All three public institutions contract with Fusus for each institution's real time crime center system.