Buncombe County
County record. Includes every city and agency within Buncombe County.
Technology presence
What these categories mean
- ALPR
- Automated license plate readers (ALPR): camera systems that automatically capture, read, and log vehicle license plates with location and time, producing a searchable record of vehicle movements.
- Fixed cameras & RTCC
- Agency-operated fixed video cameras and the real-time crime centers (RTCC) that aggregate live and recorded feeds for monitoring. Extends the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Atlas, which enumerates real-time crime centers and camera registries but not standalone fixed-camera estates.
- Face recognition
- Software that matches faces in images or video against a reference database to identify or verify individuals.
- Drones / UAS
- Uncrewed aerial systems (UAS), commonly called drones, operated by an agency for overhead observation, imaging, or sensing.
- Gunshot detection
- Networks of acoustic sensors that detect and locate suspected gunfire and alert an agency.
- Body-worn & dashcam
- Officer body-worn and in-vehicle dashboard cameras that record encounters; public access to the footage is frequently restricted.
- Doorbell & camera registry
- Programs that give an agency access to privately owned camera footage: doorbell-camera partnerships, citizen camera registries, and private-camera integration platforms.
- Cell-site simulators
- Devices that mimic cell towers to locate or identify nearby mobile phones. They are often called Stingrays, or IMSI catchers after the international mobile subscriber identity (IMSI) number that identifies each phone on a network. Adjacent: communications surveillance outside the visual/sensor core.
- Predictive policing
- Software that forecasts where crime may occur or who may be involved, to direct policing. Adjacent: analytics rather than a sensing deployment.
- Social-media monitoring
- Tools that collect and analyze public social-media activity for an agency. Adjacent: open-source/communications monitoring outside the visual/sensor core.
The record, by agency
Buncombe County Sheriff's Office
The Buncombe County Sheriff's Office operates 20 Flock Safety automated license plate readers as of September 2025.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Pittsboro Police Department
The Buncombe County Sheriff's Office has used the Fusus real-time crime center platform since September 2022.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Muckrockwww.muckrock.com
Biltmore Forest Police Department
The Biltmore Forest Police Department operates two Flock Safety automated license plate readers as of September 2025.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Pittsboro Police Department
The Biltmore Forest Police Department operates 24 Condor cameras from Flock Safety as of September 2025. The cameras are paired with video analytics software.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Pittsboro Police Department
Black Mountain Police Department
The Black Mountain Police Department operates five Flock Safety automated license plate readers as of September 2025.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Pittsboro Police Department
The Black Mountain Police Department began using VieVu body-worn cameras in 2017.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Black Mountain NewsFacebook
Asheville Police Department
The Asheville Police Department operates Flock Safety automated license plate readers as of June 2025. The agency stores ALPR data for 30 days.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Flock Safety
The Asheville Police Department uses drones and has a drone-as-first-responder program.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Asheville Citizen-TimesDJI Enterprise
The Asheville Police Department will spend approximately $325,000 for a real time crime center.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): BPR
The Asheville Police Department uses Axon body-worn cameras.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): City of Asheville Police DepartmentCity of Asheville Police DepartmentAsheville Police Department Facebook page
Buncombe County Sheriff's Department
As of 2017, the Buncombe County Sheriff's Department had 70 body-worn cameras.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Black Mountain News
Woodfin Police Department
As of 2017, the Woodfin Police Department uses body-worn cameras.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): Black Mountain News
University of North Carolina Asheville Police Department
The University of North Carolina Asheville Police Department began using Axon body-worn cameras in 2013.
Sources (via the EFF Atlas): University of North Carolina Asheville Police DepartmentAxon Enterprises, Inc.
Source: EFF Atlas of Surveillance (Electronic Frontier Foundation & University of Nevada, Reno — Reynolds School of Journalism) · CC BY 4.0 · retrieved July 2026