The Jacksonville Sheriff's Office is planning to spend $1.9 million on a partnership with Peregrine AI, software designed to pull together footage and existing agency records so investigators can search and connect cases more easily. The proposal has already drawn pushback from at least one city councilman who says Jacksonville simply doesn't have the guardrails in place to sign off on it yet.
What JSO Says the Software Will Do
According to Action News Jax, JSO said the platform will overlay across data the agency has already legally gathered, including records-management systems, jail-management systems, NIBIN records and body-worn-camera footage. The idea, per the same report, is that authorized users could search those databases to potentially link criminal activity and cases more efficiently, which the sheriff's office says would enhance investigative efforts and streamline agency operations.
Jacksonville isn't alone in exploring the tool. The station reports that JSO is just one of at least 30 different law enforcement agencies seeking funding for Peregrine software, including agencies in St. Johns, Nassau and Clay counties. Elsewhere, Peregrine's own site lists the Los Angeles Police Department, the San Francisco Police Department and the city of Atlanta among the public-safety agencies using its platform, according to Yes Press. Separately, comparethecloud.net identifies the Loudoun County Sheriff's Office as a Peregrine customer.
How the System Is Supposed to Work
Action News Jax's demonstration of the software shows it capturing footage, then detecting what objects are in frame, before adding real-time context and risk-factor information and alerting people who may be at risk — the outlet's example described the software helping a cab driver course-correct with context awareness, depth perception and lane descriptions delivered in real time. JSO described the setup as a closed AI system tailored to its own operations, with what the agency calls a Human-In-The-Loop process built in to check the accuracy of information before it's acted on.
Peregrine's own marketing describes broader technical claims that go beyond what JSO has confirmed for Jacksonville specifically. The company says its software processes camera footage on the device in real time, with camera-frame-to-action latency under 85 milliseconds, and that faces and license plates are blurred automatically, with 99% of visual data filtered out on the device itself. Peregrine also states on its site that it does not train AI models on customer data, that AI features are off by default with responses grounded in an agency's own data, and that detailed audit logs capture every query and action with user identity and timestamp attached.
Immigration Enforcement Question Looms Over the Deal
One detail drawing particular scrutiny: JSO's application to the State Board of Immigration Enforcement states that the platform examines data and provides intelligence to identify and investigate immigration enforcement efforts, per Action News Jax's reporting. The sheriff's office told the outlet it is still working on providing more information about how the software would be used both in immigration enforcement and in regular day-to-day operations.
That question isn't unique to Jacksonville. A Substack account from chazstevens.substack.com reports that the Sarasota County Sheriff funded Peregrine AI software with roughly $1 million pulled from a state immigration-enforcement fund that required no local vote — a comparison that underscores why some Jacksonville officials want clearer rules before money moves.
Council Members Split on Moving Forward
Councilman Jimmy Peluso has been the most vocal skeptic on the dais, saying the City Council does not know enough about AI to support the partnership as proposed. Peluso has advocated for the city to develop its own AI policy first, arguing that data protections, data sales, data preservation and data storage locations all need to be defined before Jacksonville commits taxpayer money to the deal.
Not every council member agrees the project should wait. Councilman Ron Salem said he supported continuing to make progress on the Peregrine partnership while a citywide AI policy is developed in parallel, rather than pausing the deployment entirely.
Other residents have pushed further than Peluso. A speaker identified as Tracy expressed concern about uncertainty over how information is used and who can access it, and called for an immediate and permanent stop to using city money for the software. Another resident identified as April questioned the benefits of the system and raised concerns about cross-country data sharing tied to the platform. JSO has also said it is no longer utilizing automatic license plate readers, a separate detail the agency has disclosed amid the broader debate over its surveillance tools.
Where the Company Is Actually Based
Where the Company Is Actually Based Even basic facts about the vendor are in dispute. Action News Jax reported that the software company is headquartered in Berlin, while Yes Press describes Peregrine as a San Francisco software company that handles data integration work for public-safety agencies. The company's own site lists international deployments, including a Webfleet visual-intelligence rollout retrofitted to commercial vehicles that went into service in September 2025.
