Asheville -- October 26. 2026: Asheville has ended its Flock Safety license plate reader contract and deactivated police access, but questions remain about records of outside searches and the removal of the city’s cameras.
An Asheville Police Department audit dated Aug. 6 recorded 2,756,648 searches of the Asheville PD Network during the second quarter of 2026. The figure appears under the heading “External Agency Network Audit” in the department’s publicly posted report.
The audit does not establish how many searches returned information from Asheville cameras or how many individual vehicles were involved. The total should not be interpreted as 2.7 million Asheville residents or vehicles being tracked.
What the audits show
APD’s first-quarter audit reported 196,605 network searches, 173 searches by Asheville officers and lookups by 2,603 other agencies. The second-quarter network total was approximately 14 times the first-quarter figure.
The second-quarter report said every search included a reason. It also reported that APD users entered an associated case number 90.17% of the time, while noting that case numbers were not mandated or always available when searches occurred.
Those findings document whether information was entered. The publicly released second-quarter report does not provide individual search reasons that readers could examine to assess whether searches were appropriate.
APD says detailed records were deleted
According to an Oct. 25 report by 828newsNOW, APD spokesman Rick Rice said Flock deleted associated search activity, outside-agency information and search reasons after the contract ended.
The timing of deletion, the existence of other copies and the possibility of recovery remained unanswered in that report. This account of deleted search records has not been independently confirmed with Flock. 828newsnow.com
At the Aug. 25 council meeting, Interim Police Chief Jackie Stepp separately described a 21-day automatic retention period for Flock data, with evidence from active investigations preserved outside the platform. That discussion did not specifically establish the retention period for search audit logs. council-minutes-archive.ashevillenc.gov
Contract cancellation did not mean immediate removal
City Council voted 5–2 on Aug. 25 to direct termination of the contract covering 11 city-operated Flock cameras. The resolution acknowledged both the technology’s potential investigative benefits and concerns about privacy, information sharing and oversight.
The city’s Technology and Public Safety page says termination notice was submitted Aug. 26 and APD deactivated its accounts. Four cameras in city rights-of-way were covered as an interim measure. Flock provided a removal window of up to 60 days beginning Oct. 12, citing technician scheduling backlogs. The page does not confirm that all equipment has been removed.
Other camera systems remain a separate issue
The cancellation applied to the city’s contract. During the August meeting, Mayor Esther Manheimer identified other entities with license plate readers, including housing and school organizations, and said the city could control only its own 11 cameras. The minutes do not provide a complete inventory of those other systems.
APD also continues using Axon readers mounted in police vehicles, according to the city’s technology page. Its third-quarter audit, dated Oct. 8, reported 573 employee searches and stated that the department was not sharing its ALPR information with external agencies at that time.
The records establish that Asheville ended its Flock agreement. They leave separate questions about historical search activity, the availability of detailed logs and the status of equipment removal.
Sources: Asheville Police Department’s 2026 quarterly ALPR audits; Asheville City Council meeting minutes, Aug. 25, 2026; City of Asheville Technology and Public Safety updates; 828newsNOW, Oct. 25, 2026.