Asheville Voted Out 11 Flock Cameras and Kept 137 Plate Readers

Our Take

Credit to Verified Privacy VPN for laying out what actually happened in Asheville, because the headline win obscures the real story. Killing the Flock contract 5-2 after residents packed public comment for over an hour is a genuine victory, and it shows organized pressure works. But the same council approved an Axon ALPR deal in May, and Asheville PD still runs 137 plate readers mounted on patrol cars, feeding into a real-time intelligence center designed to fuse plate reads with public cameras, private feeds, and dash cams. Swapping one vendor's cameras for another vendor's cameras, while building the data-fusion infrastructure that makes mass tracking possible, isn't abolition. It's rebranding.

This is the pattern that keeps tripping up well-meaning victories nationwide: cities focus on the visible poles and miss the backend systems that do the actual surveillance work. A real-time crime center that synchronizes multiple camera networks doesn't care whether the plate reader on top says Flock or Axon. The retention policies, sharing agreements, and audit trails matter more than the brand name, and those details rarely make it into the press release. Kim Roney's vote against the original contract, and her push for a moratorium, deserves attention precisely because it targeted the architecture, not just one company's logo.

If you're in Asheville or anywhere else watching a council debate ALPR contracts, don't let a partial win end the conversation. Check our map to see what's actually deployed near you, and use our take-action resources to push for real retention limits and audits, not just a change of vendor.