Union County discusses Axon camera rollout and license-plate-reading AI; officials say agencies will share access

Union County officials reported that Axon cameras were installed recently and outlined plans to deploy license-plate-reader cameras and AI features intended to assist investigations. Officials said a vendor meeting is scheduled Monday at 09:30 to finalize how the system will operate.

Speaker 3 said the system includes license-plate readers and described how in-car and body cameras are expected to work: "these are license plate reader cameras that assist us with crime going on" and that body/car cameras can be configured to activate (for example, when lights are turned on). He added that the system is not meant to issue traffic citations for seat-belt or speed violations during normal driving.

Speaker 4 asked directly, "Who all have access to the live feed of that?" Speaker 3 responded that the county expects to share information with other agencies and that AI features can be configured to search for particular objects or vehicles (he used the example of programming the system to look for a "white garbage truck").

Officials also described a hypothetical search use case: if a missing child’s clothing and height were entered into the system, AI plus integrated camera feeds could be used to attempt to locate matching images. Board members did not finalize access protocols during this meeting; Speaker 3 said the county is "going to share all our information with all the agencies" involved and that details about integration with school systems and external oversight remain to be worked out.

The board scheduled a follow-up meeting with the vendor to complete technical and operational plans.