Bay Area debate over Flock license-plate cameras has focused attention on one part of police surveillance. Privacy experts say another tool can cast a much wider net: real-time crime centers that combine video and data from multiple sources into a single police dashboard. Hundreds of U.S. police departments operate these centers. Some now use software such as Fusus, made by public-safety technology company Axon, to bring together feeds from license-plate readers, police body cameras and dashcams, drones, 911 dispatch systems, gunshot detectors and surveillance cameras. Some participating cameras belong to private businesses. Axon describes Fusus as a cloud-based crime-center system. The number of law enforcement agencies using it has more than doubled since 2024, according to the company. That year, more than 100 agencies had deployed the technology, according to a report cited by researchers. Police say the systems can speed up investigations and help protect officers and the public. In South Carolina, Greenville County Sheriff’s Department official Quincy Whitner said Fusus helped investigators locate a man accused of shooting an officer and fleeing by combining city camera footage with license-plate data. The system lets officers search information from one platform rather than tracking it down across separate systems, he said. Privacy advocates see that convenience as a risk as well as a benefit. Rachel Levinson-Waldman, who leads the Liberty and National Security Program at New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice, said traditional surveillance required time and personnel, creating practical limits on how often police could follow people or conduct stakeouts. Centralized systems can remove some of those barriers, making it easier to search broad collections of information without a specific reason to suspect someone, she warned. Andrew Guthrie Ferguson, a law professor at George Washington University, said real-time crime centers can offer a unified view of a city, including the ability to review past footage. He cautioned that such infrastructure could be misused to monitor or target individuals or groups. Data errors can also draw innocent people into investigations, privacy experts say. Police officials argue the systems are intended to help solve crimes, not monitor people who are doing nothing wrong. Michelle Iezzi, a deputy director at the Montgomery County Police Department in Maryland, said officers use the tools to focus on people committing crimes. Axon did not respond to requests for comment. CEO Rick Smith has said the technology should amplify human capabilities rather than replace human judgment. The debate has added urgency in the Bay Area, where Flock cameras have faced public opposition and local policy changes. But experts say limits aimed only at license-plate readers may leave other surveillance systems largely untouched. They have urged lawmakers to consider rules on how long data can be retained, regular audits and restrictions on surveillance near sensitive locations such as abortion clinics and immigration courts. Ferguson said those safeguards should be discussed before a system is put into use.