Community safety cameras
Kerbside
License plate and vehicle recognition that a town, a neighborhood or a business can install in an afternoon, connected to the agencies that keep it safe.
- Cameras installed
- 46,212
- Communities
- 2,684
- States
- 41
- Vehicle reads a month
- 2.9 billion
- From
- $2,850 per camera per year
Install, read, alert
- 01
Install
A Kerbside K4 mounts on an existing pole in under an hour. It runs on solar power and connects over the cellular network, so there is no trenching, no power supply to arrange and no network to configure. Our field team handles permits, placement and installation.
- 02
Read
Each camera reads the license plate of every passing vehicle, day and night, up to 100 mph, together with its make, body type, color and visible features such as roof racks, damage or a missing plate. Reads appear in the Kerbside dashboard within seconds.
- 03
Alert
When a vehicle on a hotlist passes a camera, the agency is alerted in real time: a stolen car, an Amber Alert, a vehicle wanted in connection with a crime, or one on the agency’s own custom list. Alerts go to dispatch, to officers’ phones and to Concord.
Kerbside K4
Designed and assembled for Tellwright in the United States, the K4 is built to be put up quickly and forgotten about. A day of sun keeps it running for five days.
Find the vehicle, not just the plate
Witnesses rarely remember a plate. They remember a dark gray pickup with a ladder rack and a dent in the tailgate. Kerbside lets investigators search by any combination of make, body type, color, visible features, partial plate, state, time and place, across their own cameras and every camera shared with them.1
Results show each read with its image, time and camera, on a map and a timeline. An investigator can follow a vehicle from camera to camera, see where it was seen most often, and send any read to a case in Concord with one click.
With Kinship, Kerbside reads become part of a resolved picture: the vehicles associated with an address, the vehicles that are regularly seen together, and the people associated with each vehicle in the agency’s own records.
Owned by the community, shared by choice
Every Kerbside camera has an owner: a police department, a town, a homeowners’ or neighborhood association, a school district or a business. The owner decides which agencies can search its cameras’ reads, and can change that decision at any time.
| Option | Who can see reads | Set up |
|---|---|---|
| Local | The owner’s local law enforcement agency | On for every community camera |
| Kerbside Network | Participating agencies within 50 miles that share their own cameras | Offered at onboarding; chosen by 91% of owners2 |
| National Lookup | Any participating agency, for vehicles on its hotlists | Offered at onboarding |
| Mission partner sharing | State, federal and other agencies the owner or its agency names | By agreement |
Every search of Kerbside data records the user, the agency and the reason given, and owners can see the searches made of their own cameras in the dashboard’s audit view.
Built for the whole community
More than 80 percent of Kerbside cameras are owned by communities and businesses rather than police departments. A homeowners’ association can put a camera at its entrance; a shopping center at its parking lot exits; a school district at its bus depot; a town at the roads into its downtown. Each chooses to share with its local department, and the department can see every shared camera alongside its own.
Many towns now fund cameras through their public safety budget and place them at every road into town. Homeowners’ associations often fund one or two cameras from their annual dues. Tellwright’s community team helps owners explain the program to residents, with a template notice, sign wording and a frequently asked questions page they can publish.
Agencies can see which community cameras have been offered to them, and invite owners in their jurisdiction to share.
Privacy by design
- Vehicles, not people. Kerbside does not use facial recognition and does not identify people. Pedestrians, cyclists and the occupants of vehicles may appear in images; they are not analyzed.
- 30-day retention by default. Reads and images are deleted after 30 days unless the owner sets a different period, a read matches a hotlist, or it has been attached to an investigation.3
- Every search logged. Searches require a reason and are recorded against the user and agency. Owners can review searches of their cameras.
- The owner’s data. Kerbside data belongs to the camera’s owner. Tellwright does not sell it.4
Technical specifications
Specifications are subject to change. Detailed data sheets are available in a briefing.
| Model | Kerbside K4 (K4-S solar; K4-P powered) |
|---|---|
| Housing | 312 × 148 × 126 mm (12.3 × 5.8 × 5.0 in), with hood; aluminum, powder coated |
| Weight | 3.1 kg (6.8 lb) camera; 9.4 kg (20.7 lb) with panel and battery unit |
| Capture | Two lanes, 4.5 to 46 m (15 to 150 ft), vehicles up to 160 km/h (100 mph) |
| Lens | 8–32 mm motorized, remote focus |
| Illumination | 850 nm infrared, 8 LEDs; reads in darkness to 30 m |
| Reads | Plate characters, state or province, make, body type, color, visible features |
| Power (K4-S) | 40 W solar panel; 288 Wh lithium iron phosphate battery; five days without sun |
| Power (K4-P) | 100–240 V AC or 24 V DC from an existing supply |
| Connectivity | LTE Cat 4, dual SIM, two carriers; encrypted end to end |
| Environment | −40 to 60 °C (−40 to 140 °F); IP66; wind load rated to 150 mph |
| Mounting | Poles 60 to 120 mm (2.4 to 4.7 in); mast arm and wall brackets available |
| Warranty | Covered for the life of the subscription, including replacement |
Questions communities ask
Does Kerbside use facial recognition?
No. Kerbside reads vehicles. It does not use facial recognition, and its images are not used to identify people.
Who owns the data?
The owner of the camera. A town’s cameras belong to the town, a homeowners’ association’s to the association. Each owner decides which agencies can search its cameras’ reads.
How long is data kept?
Thirty days by default, after which reads and images are deleted. The owner can set a shorter or longer period where its laws allow. Reads that match a hotlist or are attached to an investigation are kept under the investigating agency’s retention policy.
Can a homeowners’ association share with the police?
Yes. Most community cameras are shared with the local law enforcement agency, which can see shared cameras alongside its own. The association can stop sharing at any time from its dashboard.
Can an owner stop sharing?
Yes. Every sharing option can be switched off by the owner at any time, and the change takes effect immediately for new searches. Reads that have already been attached to an investigation by another agency remain part of that investigation.
What does Kerbside cost?
Kerbside K4-S costs $2,850 per camera per year, including the camera, solar panel and battery, installation, connectivity, maintenance and replacement. There is no up-front cost. Agencies can see pricing for their state contract vehicles in a briefing.
Do we need a permit?
Usually, for cameras in the public right-of-way. Our deployment team prepares permit applications and placement plans with the local road authority, and installs only once a permit is granted.
Works with Kerbside
- Searches of cameras shared with an agency are limited to the purposes and periods set by each camera’s owner and by the agency’s own policy. ↩
- Of camera owners who completed onboarding between January 1 and September 30, 2026. ↩
- Reads that match a hotlist and reads attached to an investigation are retained under the policy of the agency that holds them, including agencies the owner shares with. Backups are overwritten within 35 days of deletion. ↩
- Tellwright may use aggregated and de-identified data derived from Kerbside reads, including vehicle movement and traffic patterns, to operate, maintain and improve Kerbside and Tellwright’s other products and services. De-identified data is not subject to the owner’s retention period. See the Kerbside Service Terms. ↩