The Asheville Police Department told the Public Safety Committee July 31 that it plans to create a standalone Technology and Intelligence Division to centralize the department’s drones, license-plate readers, body-worn cameras and other surveillance assets, and to operate a future real-time intelligence center.

Deputy Chief Jackie Stepp said the division will consolidate technology assets and oversight under a single command and will be staffed from within APD’s existing budget with one personnel reclassification proposed to create a captain to oversee the unit. Stepp said the division will manage the department’s drone program, in-car and body-worn cameras, license-plate reader (LPR) integrations, and a civilian crime and public-safety analyst team.

Technology specialist Jimmy Wingo described safeguards and policies the department uses: operators must be trained and certified, access to systems is “need to know,” drone policy requires the camera gimbal be held at the horizon until operators reach the target to avoid inadvertent recording of private yards, and electronic evidence is encrypted using AES-256. Wingo said state law limits retention of LPR data to 90 days (some vendor systems use 30-day retention) unless the data becomes evidence for an investigation.

Wingo also told the committee that APD does not use facial-recognition software and that the department has “turned off” any immigration-related alerting in its systems. He said evidence systems and recordings are owned and controlled by APD and that release of recordings is governed by state statutes and the records-retention schedule.

Residents and community advocates raised privacy and data-sharing concerns during public comment. Patrick Conan asked how ATD (city transportation technology) and APD share data and called for community-developed guardrails and oversight. Nicole Lopez asked whether APD’s data might be shared routinely with outside agencies and cited national reporting about law-enforcement data sharing; she asked for transparency on audit processes. Gabriel Holland emphasized concerns about effects on vulnerable people and asked the committee to avoid punitive outcomes for youth and people experiencing homelessness.

Council members asked technical and legal questions. Council Member Shanika Smith and others pressed the department on bias mitigation and oversight, and on whether state law changes (recent House Bill language addressing county jails) create new obligations for the city. City Attorney Brad Branham said that recent state legislation applies to sheriffs and county jails and, as the city does not operate a jail, that statute does not alter city processes.

No formal action was taken on the technology presentation; the item was informational. Staff said they will continue community engagement, training requirements, and pursue grant funding for software to support a real-time intelligence center that integrates multiple camera and sensor feeds.