Dunwoody and Alpharetta have quietly yanked their public police dashboards after staff realized the portals were displaying restricted information, including identifying details about juveniles. The online pages, which many cities lean on to share crash reports and daily incident logs, run on third-party police records software. City officials say the takedowns are temporary while the vendor and staff comb through the systems. In the meantime, residents looking for incident details are being steered to formal records requests while the tech gets a checkup.
What went offline
As reported by WABE, the public-facing tools run on CentralSquare’s Police-to-Citizen platform and were surfacing information that should have been restricted. WABE notes that other Metro Atlanta agencies also rely on the same service. Both Dunwoody and Alpharetta pulled their dashboards after staff saw protected information showing up in daily logs.
Dunwoody's response
Rough Draft Atlanta reports that Dunwoody shut down its Police-to-Citizen portal in mid-February, after a resident first warned the city in December and then again in February that juvenile data was accessible online. According to the outlet, city staff alerted CentralSquare and asked for an emergency fix. Dunwoody Police Chief Mike Carlson said, "We are undertaking a thorough review of this portal to determine where the breakdown occurred and to put stronger, sustainable protections in place," per Rough Draft Atlanta.
How to get records now
For now, residents who want specifics on recent incidents are being directed to the City of Dunwoody’s Transparency & Data Sharing Initiative and its Police Reports & Open Records page, where formal request instructions and contact details are posted. That municipal page outlines the official channels for records requests and public reports, and it remains the entry point for anyone who needs incident documentation. The City of Dunwoody maintains those links and step-by-step instructions.
Alpharetta's move to Hexagon
According to WABE, Alpharetta’s dashboard has been dark since late 2025 while the city transitions its database services to Hexagon, a vendor that provides computer-aided dispatch and records management. WABE reports that Alpharetta approved a Hexagon contract in 2023 and that both Dunwoody and Alpharetta still budget for CentralSquare services in the near term. For the time being, WABE notes, both cities are telling residents to file open-records requests to learn about recent public safety incidents.
Why it matters
Publishing identifying information about juveniles on a public portal raises significant privacy and legal issues, since Georgia law treats many juvenile records as confidential. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation’s open-records guidance states that juvenile records and certain other law enforcement materials are typically exempt from public disclosure. CentralSquare’s own product documentation describes Police-to-Citizen as a platform designed to publish incident logs, which highlights how a configuration mistake or overly broad permissions on the back end could unintentionally push sensitive data into public view.
What's next
City officials say they plan to review vendor settings, user permissions, and how records flow into the public-facing tools in an effort to prevent a repeat. They have not announced any immediate changes to providers while those reviews unfold. The resident who repeatedly flagged the problem told local reporters that seeing the information resurface was a matter of public trust, and local advocates say the situation shows the risks that come with leaning on third-party platforms for public records access. Rough Draft Atlanta has continued to follow the resident’s complaint and the city’s ongoing review.
