Asheville -- August 20. 2026: Asheville’s municipal surveillance program faces an immediate shutdown after Mayor Esther Manheimer announced she will formally ask the City Council to terminate the city’s contract with Flock Safety and remove all automated license plate reader (ALPR) cameras from public roadways. The measure, scheduled for a vote at the upcoming City Council meeting on Tuesday, August 25, 2026, authorizes City Manager DK Wesley to execute the cancellation and dismantle the hardware.
According to an official statement released by Mayor Manheimer, city leadership evaluated temporary options but found that a moratorium was contractually unworkable. Manheimer stated that after hearing clearly from Asheville residents, she is calling to turn off the Flock cameras and remove them, noting that after careful review and consultation, it would not be enough to call for a moratorium because the contract does not allow for the removal of the technology unless it is terminated.
The push for complete removal follows earlier efforts by the city to regulate public surveillance. In May 2026, the City Council passed Resolution 26-97 to protect civil liberties during data collection. However, subsequent nationwide reporting regarding Flock’s broader network practices demonstrated that local administrative restrictions could not fully prevent third-party exposure.
A central concern cited in the mayor’s announcement involves documented instances in other jurisdictions where local vehicular tracking feeds were accessed by federal agencies, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), without the explicit knowledge or approval of contracting municipalities. Because the vendor operates an interconnected national network, data captured on local city streets can be queried across external jurisdictions, effectively bypassing municipal oversight and local privacy policies.
Asheville’s move comes amid a growing record of civil liberties challenges, internal affairs audits, and criminal court filings across the country detailing improper access to ALPR systems:
Stalking and Domestic Surveillance in Florida: In Polk County, Florida, an internal affairs audit revealed a Haines City police officer ran 717 unauthorized queries on his estranged wife’s vehicle, entering fabricated case justifications such as narcotics and reckless driving into the system to monitor her off-duty movements. In a separate Florida case, a Sarasota officer was fired and charged after improperly running a private vehicle through law enforcement surveillance databases hundreds of times.
Mass Misconduct in Georgia: In Albany, Georgia, five police officers were terminated and criminally charged following an internal investigation that revealed systematic personal misuse of surveillance camera networks outside of authorized law enforcement duties.
Multi-Network Personal Tracking: In Massachusetts, an internal affairs inquiry and court filings showed an officer queried over 100 regional camera networks to monitor the travel patterns of an ex-partner without a warrant or active criminal case.
Interstate Medical and Travel Surveillance: Digital rights organizations, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), have highlighted cases where agencies utilized nationwide multi-network searches across tens of thousands of cameras to track cross-border travel for sensitive healthcare procedures.
Manheimer commended Interim Asheville Police Chief Jackie Stepp for proactively implementing local data protection policies, but noted that a complete institutional reset is necessary to guarantee resident privacy. The mayor called for transparent accounting of all historical license plate records gathered under the contract and clear protocols for purging that data once the agreement is terminated, emphasizing a need to regroup and work with the community to establish policies that protect individuals while protecting the entire community.
The formal agenda item and background documents for the August 25 City Council session are available to the public on the city’s official portal at ashevillenc.gov/government/city-council-agenda.