Pinellas County Sheriff's Office

What Pinellas County Sheriff's Office does

Pinellas County Sheriff's Office (PCSO) is a county-level law enforcement agency headquartered in Largo, Florida, providing comprehensive public safety services to the residents, visitors, and businesses of Pinellas County. The agency operates across multiple bureaus including Patrol Operations, Investigative Operations, Homeland Security, Judicial Operations, and Corrections, with specialized units such as Cyber Investigations, Crimes Against Children, Robbery & Homicide, and the Use of Deadly Force Investigative Task Force. PCSO is led by an elected Sheriff, currently Bob Gualtieri, and is CALEA accredited. The agency is funded through Pinellas County budgets and public appropriations rather than commercial revenue.

Since 2001, PCSO has operated the FACES (Facial Analysis Comparison & Embedding System) facial recognition software, making it one of the oldest continuously-operated police face-recognition tools in the United States. FACES provides facial comparison services to hundreds of police departments nationwide, returning similarity percentage matches used in suspect identification. Beyond FACES, PCSO has expanded its forensic toolkit through partnership with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) on genetic genealogy testing for cold case DNA work, exemplified by the May 2026 arrest of Lester Austin III in a 1998 armed sexual battery case. PCSO also runs community engagement programs including the 56 Podcast, Citizens Academy, Neighborhood Watch, and Victim Services, and operates Pinellas Safe Harbor as its inmate services facility.

PCSO's business model is government appropriations rather than commercial pricing, and its services are delivered directly to the public via 911 emergency dispatch, a non-emergency line, field patrol, and service centers. The agency's technology product line — anchored by FACES — is provisioned at no disclosed cost to other police departments, and inter-agency partnerships with entities such as the Jacksonville Beach Police Department, Jacksonville Sheriff's Office, FDLE, the US Marshal's Task Force, and the Pinellas County Medical Examiner's Office extend its operational footprint across Florida. Notable legal exposure exists from the 2024 ACLU-backed Robert Dillon wrongful arrest lawsuit, which alleges FACES produced a false 93% match leading to a misidentification.

Name

Pinellas County Sheriff's Office

Legal name

Pinellas County Sheriff's Office

Website

https://pcsoweb.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2001

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1,001–5,000 employees

Short description

Pinellas County Sheriff's Office is a Florida county-level law enforcement agency providing patrol, investigations, corrections, and homeland security services to Pinellas County residents and visitors, and operating the FACES facial recognition system for hundreds of US police departments since 2001.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Law Enforcement Services

NAICS

Police Protection (922120), Correctional Institutions (922140)

SIC

Services-Detective, Guard & Armored Car Services (7381)

akta.pro primary industry

Security Systems Monitoring & Dispatch (SOC/Remote Guarding) (IMAIAEAF)

akta.pro secondary industry

Correctional Facility Management Outsourcing & Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) (BPAKANAJ)

Keywords

• Law enforcement services
• Public safety
• Criminal investigations
• Facial recognition
• Emergency response

Headquarters

HQ city

Largo

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2C

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Operations, Infrastructure, Technology or R&D, Others

Distribution channels4 records

Marketing channels3 records

Core offering

Pinellas County Sheriff's Office (PCSO) is a county-level law enforcement agency delivering patrol operations, criminal investigations, corrections, court services, and homeland security to the residents and visitors of Pinellas County, Florida. Its core technology product is the FACES facial recognition system, operated since 2001 and provided as a comparison service to hundreds of police departments nationwide. Supporting services include fingerprinting, alarm registration, victim services, public education programs, and community volunteer initiatives.

Product overview

Pinellas County Sheriff's Office operates a law enforcement agency with FACES (Facial Recognition System) as its primary technology product. FACES is a face-recognition system that has been operational since 2001, providing facial recognition comparison services to hundreds of police departments nationwide. The agency offers various public safety programs and services including patrol operations, investigative operations, corrections, and community programs through its website portal, but FACES remains the core technology offering that distinguishes PCSO's technical product portfolio.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• FACES (Facial Analysis Comparison & Embedding System): Facial recognition software system operated by PCSO since 2001, used by hundreds of police departments for facial analysis and identification.
• 56 Podcast
• Pinellas Safe Harbor
• Fifty Six Podcast

Products and services

• FACES Facial Recognition System
• Patrol Operations
• Investigative Operations
• Corrections and Inmate Services
• Court Services
• Fingerprinting Services
• Alarm Registration (SHARP)
• Citizens Academy

Quantifiable outcome

• Services provided to hundreds of police departments through FACES facial recognition system

Segments2 records

Ideal customer profiles2 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

AI capability2 records

Feature1 record

Partnerships

Five partnerships are on record, tiered core.

• Jacksonville Beach Police DepartmentcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerJBPD collaborated with PCSO in a wrongful arrest case where FACES facial recognition was used to identify Robert Dillon. PCSO provided the facial recognition comparison that led to the arrest. This partnership involves shared use of facial recognition technology in joint investigations.
• Jacksonville Sheriff's OfficecoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerJacksonville Sheriff's Office partnered with PCSO in the FACES facial recognition case. The lawsuit names both agencies along with JBPD. The investigating officer and Jacksonville Sheriff are named as defendants in the ACLU lawsuit filed on behalf of Robert Dillon.
• US Marshal's Task ForcecoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerUS Marshal's Task Force assisted PCSO in locating Lester Austin III at his Tampa residence for a cold case arrest. The Task Force executed the arrest warrant for two counts of Armed Sexual Battery stemming from a 1998 case.
• Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerFDLE used genetic genealogy testing beginning in October 2019 to identify Lester Austin III from DNA evidence collected in a 1998 cold case. This partnership enabled PCSO to make an arrest in a decades-old sexual battery case.
• Pinellas County Medical Examiner's OfficecoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerThe Medical Examiner's Office is identifying human remains found in Tampa Bay during the search for missing USF student Nahida Bristy. PCSO investigators recovered the remains and transferred them to the Medical Examiner for identification.

Scale indicators2 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Broad incumbents

• Axon: Axon provides a broad portfolio of law enforcement technology (body cameras, records, digital evidence) and has been expanding into AI-based identification — comparable to PCSO as a major technology vendor serving US police agencies.
• Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE): FDLE is the statewide law enforcement agency that partnered with PCSO on genetic genealogy testing; it operates overlapping forensic, investigative, and identification capabilities relevant to PCSO's FACES and forensic partnership workflows.

Direct peers

• Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department: Largest county Sheriff's office in the US by headcount; operates comparable patrol, investigations, corrections, and specialized unit functions to PCSO at a substantially larger scale.
• Clearview AI: Clearview AI provides facial recognition search services to hundreds of law enforcement agencies in the US, directly competing with PCSO's FACES system in the same buyer segment (police departments) with a comparable comparison-service model.
• Harris County Sheriff's Office: Harris County (Houston) Sheriff's Office is a large full-service county law enforcement agency operating patrol, investigations, and corrections functions comparable in scope to PCSO.
• Vigilant Solutions (Motorola Solutions): Vigilant Solutions, owned by Motorola Solutions, offers facial recognition and license plate recognition tools to US law enforcement — directly comparable to PCSO's FACES offering in customer base and use case.
• Cook County Sheriff's Office: Cook County (Chicago) Sheriff's Office operates as a large full-service county law enforcement agency with patrol, corrections, court services, and forensic technology capabilities comparable to PCSO.
• Idemia: Idemia supplies biometric identification (facial, fingerprint) to law enforcement and government agencies, directly comparable to PCSO's FACES for suspect identification workflows.
• NEC Corporation (NeoFace): NEC's NeoFace is one of the most widely deployed facial recognition platforms in US law enforcement and government, directly comparable to FACES as a biometric identification service for police agencies.

Emerging players

• Cognitec Systems: Cognitec's FaceVACS facial recognition technology is used by law enforcement and government agencies for identification, making it a comparable biometric vendor to PCSO's FACES system.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights5 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/SheriffPinellas
• YouTubeyoutube.com/user/PinellasSheriff
• Facebookfacebook.com/pinellassheriff
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/pinellas-county-sheriff's-office
• Instagraminstagram.com/pinellassheriff

Compliance1 record

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles1 record

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

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M&A

Investments

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