On August 20, 2026, the written rules that will govern the Real-Time Intelligence Center became public for the first time: seven documents obtained through two public records requests (PRR-2026-837 and PRR-2026-840) and shared publicly by Sunshine Labs’ Patrick Conant (the full folder). They include four drafts of APD Policy 1703, the meeting notes of the private workgroup that shaped it, and two email chains between APD, the city attorney’s office, and Axon’s sales rep. Every document is linked below and archived on this site in case the folder ever goes away.
Three headlines, then the detail:
- The policy is four pages, bans facial recognition in one sentence, sets no retention periods, never mentions immigration or ICE, and keeps every audit internal to the chief of police. Its effective date is still blank.
- Protections appeared and disappeared between drafts. A ban on remote terminal access and a once-per-shift review of plate-reader hotlists were in the June 29 draft and gone by July 9. The facial recognition ban, required by council’s own May resolution, was absent from the first two drafts.
- The emails date the Axon contract: it was still being assembled on July 8 and went to Axon for signature on July 16, 2026, nine weeks after council authorized it, along with a second, previously unreported contract for 20 Axon Fleet in-car plate readers. The same chain shows the city opting out of Axon’s default data-mining program, in an email, after choosing not to write the opt-out into the contract.
What the policy says
The final draft of Policy 1703, Real Time Intelligence Center is four pages. What it contains:
- A facial recognition ban, in the department’s own rulebook for the first time: “RTIC personnel will not use tools or platforms that use facial recognition technology” (1703.1.G). This is stronger than a council resolution because officers can be disciplined against it, and weaker than a law because the chief can revise it without a public vote. It bans use by RTIC personnel; it says nothing about what vendors’ systems do upstream.
- The Technology Manager runs the RTIC (1703.1.A). The same single-gate structure the site has documented, now codified.
- Livestream limits on body cameras: live streaming of body-worn or in-car cameras only in emergencies or exigent circumstances, only with the Operations Bureau Commander’s permission, only if the camera is already recording, with a beep and light on the officer’s camera (1703.2.D).
- The audit, specified at last: “At least quarterly, the Professional Standards Section will randomly review user access logs within the Axon Fusus system,” with documentation “submitted to the chief of police or designee” (1703.4.D). That is the whole oversight loop: a random sample, reviewed internally, reported to the chief. No publication, no council report, no external reviewer. Promise Tracker row 4 now has its mechanism.
- A wide sharing exception: RTIC information won’t be disclosed to unauthorized parties “except as permitted by law or with a compelling need to share such information for legitimate law enforcement purposes” (1703.3.C). “Permitted by law” and “compelling need” are the entire limit on third-party sharing.
- Event work is in the job description: RTIC employees are responsible for “assisting in planning for public events, large crowds, and special operations” (1703.1.B.2). The June 25 draft said this more plainly; see below.
Where the sentence came from. That sharing clause is not APD’s. The Buncombe County Sheriff’s Office RTIC policy, approved April 9, 2025, reads: information “shall not be disclosed to any unauthorized person or entity, except as permitted by law or with a compelling need to share such information for legitimate law enforcement purposes.” Policy 1703.3.C repeats it word for word. The county policy also still contains two things APD removed from its drafts: the instruction to use cameras near public events “to look for suspicious activity leading up to and during the event,” and the once-per-shift review of plate-reader hot-list entries. Asheville’s rulebook is the county’s, with the candid parts taken out.
What the county’s version of the policy produces is measurable. The Sheriff’s Office’s own Fusus audit log, released in May 2026, shows that “proactive monitoring” is the center’s main activity: 217,506 live camera views against 7,052 recorded, 58 percent of them on public housing (The Sheriff’s Audit Log). APD’s Policy 1703 copies the county’s sharing clause; whether it copies the county’s habits is a question only APD’s own log can answer (request 17).
What changed between drafts
The releases include three dated drafts (June 25 · June 29 · July 9, which matches the final). Laying them side by side shows what the process added, and what it quietly dropped.
Added during the process:
| What | When it appeared |
|---|---|
| The facial recognition ban | July 9. Absent from the June 25 and June 29 drafts, even though APD’s own policy manager told the workgroup on June 11 that council’s resolution requires the policy to “explicitly prohibit” it |
| Audits by Professional Standards instead of the Intelligence Section auditing itself | July 9 (June 29 had the Intelligence Section commander inspecting his own section’s queries) |
| “Domestic … intelligence data” dropped from the intelligence-gathering scope | July 9 (June 25 and June 29 both covered “domestic and criminal intelligence data”) |
| Softer public-event language | July 9. The June 25 draft authorized the RTIC to “utilize available technological resources near relevant events to look for suspicious activity leading up to and during the event”; the final says “assisting in planning … to provide support, information gathering” |
Removed along the way:
| What | Last seen |
|---|---|
| ”Remote terminal access will not be permitted.” | June 29 draft (1703.4.B), gone by July 9. No replacement language. |
| Manual review of ALPR hotlist entries “at least once per shift”, removing stale plates | June 29 draft (1703.3.D), gone by July 9, along with the whole ALPR-procedures section, now just a pointer to Policy 505 |
| A Live Feed Audit form for every livestream activation | June 29 draft, gone by July 9; the final tracks livestreams only through the quarterly random review |
| RTIC support for “joint operations across multiple agencies, such as the pre-planned execution of arrest and/or search warrants” | June 25 draft, folded into general language afterward |
Whether each deletion was a simplification or a retreat is exactly the kind of question a public policy process would have answered. This one wasn’t public; see the workgroup below.
What never made it in
Measure the four pages against the promises made to sell the RTIC (Promise Tracker, Their Claims vs The Record). Not in the policy, in any draft:
- Immigration and ICE. Zero mentions. Deputy Chief Sean Aardema’s “we will not be sharing information with federal immigration” exists only in WLOS’s coverage; the written rulebook’s only sharing limit is the “permitted by law or compelling need” clause.
- Retention periods. No numbers anywhere; retention lives in other documents and vendor settings.
- The racial-profiling prohibition. The workgroup notes record APD’s policy manager saying on June 11 that, per the council resolution, the policy must ensure the program “does not permit racial profiling or discrimination.” No such clause appears in any draft or the final.
- The search-term blocks on immigration and reproductive topics that Wingo described to WLOS in July. Not in the policy.
- The “18 people” search cap. Not in the policy; access is whoever the chief authorizes.
- Any publication requirement. Nothing in the policy requires any audit, report, or statistic to ever reach council or the public.
The workgroup: who wrote the rules, and how
The meeting notes cover four sessions (June 11, June 25, July 9, July 23, 2026), held at APD and the Sheriff’s Office, lunch provided, no public notice, no public seat. These are APD’s own minutes, so quotes below are the department’s own written record of what was said.
Who was in the room: Interim Chief Stepp, Capt. Brandon Moore (Technology and Intelligence Division), Jimmy Wingo, APD’s crime-analysis and policy managers, Sheriff Quentin Miller, and invited community members: the Legacy Neighborhood Coalition, Homeward Bound, the WNC Jewish Security Task Force, a city neighborhood-services staffer, and the Housing Authority’s Director of Property Management, whose properties already host hundreds of the county’s cameras. Who wasn’t: anyone from CAMS, GAP, SASSI, the ACLU, or any group that opposed the RTIC. The notes record Miller suggesting “we consider having those who are opposed join us at the table in these discussions”; Stepp’s recorded answer was that “we believe we are accomplishing this through the tours, community meetings, etc.”
What the notes disclose that no public meeting has:
- The goal is regional. Stepp’s recorded welcome: align city and county efforts and “position this initiative to evolve into a regional RTIC.” The July 9 notes add that city-county alignment “will be formalized in an MOU”, a document that now belongs on every records-request list.
- The messaging strategy, written down. The June 25 notes list, as a key theme: “Framing the program as a community partnership rather than a surveillance initiative.” Miller’s recorded formulation: “the RTIC is not an invasion of privacy, but a tool used only when requested.”
- Audits, per the sheriff, are not for you. Miller, June 11: “While audits serve internal purposes rather than the public directly, our messaging must emphasize that this technology enables real-time oversight of officer activity.”
- The federal-cooperation clause. Stepp, June 11, on the DOJ grant: it “contains no language on immigration, aside from standard language that local law enforcement will cooperate with federal law enforcement investigations.” That aside is the entire national concern, stated in-house.
- A new facial recognition promise. Stepp, June 11: any future use of facial recognition “would require a return to Council for approval” and “cannot be activated without a formal policy revision and specific authorization.” That commitment now sits in the tracker; note that the policy itself contains no return-to-council requirement.
- The schedule. July 23 notes: staff training after the policy is released, APD “will begin to solicit integration in the Fall of 2026,” full operation in Spring 2027.
- Candor about the risk. Capt. Moore, asked the program’s greatest risk: “the loss of public confidence and trust,” adding that “internal misuse is also a risk.” His operating theory of the buildout, same notes: “More eyes equals more ability.”
- How it’s paid for. Miller: “seized drug money initially funded this expensive system” at the Sheriff’s Office, grants are “temporary relief,” and long-term sustainability “requires the community to embrace the program.” Translation worth tracking: after the grant, this lands on local budgets.
- Outside-agency requests fail sometimes. The June 25 notes, on requests from other agencies: “Very few agencies have failed to provide adequate justification for requests.” Very few is not zero, and none of it is published.
- Retention grows by use. From the county RTIC tour: “retention periods are extended each time data is transferred in connection with an investigation.”
The contract emails: dates the city never announced
Two email chains (the ACEIP chain · the contract chain) close several open questions:
When the contract was actually signed. Council authorized the Axon contract May 12 with no final text in existence. The emails show APD’s business manager telling Axon’s rep on July 16: “Legal has finished reviewing the combine contract and we are ready for your review and signature!” The rep’s reply: “Let me get this routed for signature now!” Nine weeks after the vote, the paper council had approved sight-unseen finally existed to sign, and its public release, promised for August 14, still hasn’t happened.
A second contract nobody mentioned. The same email describes “the same contract template your legal team approved for the 20 Fleet cameras,” and a July 13 message says “the Fleet one is in the final signature stage.” Axon Fleet is its in-car plate reader line. Twenty of them, in a separate contract, appear in no council presentation we can find.
The ACEIP opt-out: real, and resting on an email. On July 15, Senior Assistant City Attorney Cydney Joyner wrote colleagues that the Axon MSA’s appendix enrolls agencies in ACEIP Tier 1 by default, and that after speaking with Chief Stepp and executive staff, “we wish to opt out, or revoke our consent, to both Tiers so that we are not participating in either.” This site asked exactly that question; here is the answer, and credit where due: the city’s own lawyer caught the default and the chief agreed to revoke it. The mechanics deserve one more look, though. Joyner chose not to add opt-out language to the contract (“Since that can be done without adding anything to our contract terms, I will go ahead and sign off on the legal pre-review”), and the confirmation is Axon rep Andrea Swann’s July 16 email: “I remove the ACEIP language from all of your quotes, and have for the past several years. You will be good my making this update, I’ve opted you out.” So Asheville’s exclusion from Axon’s data-mining program rests on a sales rep’s email rather than a contract term. The records request that finishes the job: Axon’s formal written confirmation of ACEIP withdrawal, which Axon’s own policy says it provides within 30 days.
The FUSUS escape hatch is narrow, verbatim. The contingency clause the city added allows terminating “the FUSUS portion of this Quote” only “if sufficient funds are not appropriated” or “if the Agency doesn’t receive the anticipated grant funding,” and in that event “only the FUSUS portion of the Quote will be terminated and removed from future invoicing, and all other products, services, and amounts listed herein will remain active.” That is the no-termination-for-convenience baseline this site documented, now confirmed in Asheville’s own paper.
The city manager’s one recorded question in the chain, July 9: “Does this mean that the other pricing remains the same? In other words, the savings realized from Bundling is not impacted by FUSUS?” (D.K. Wesley’s page holds her record.)
And a detail that needs no commentary: every email from Axon’s account rep to APD carries the signature banner “Request a demo of our Fixed ALPR here!” While Asheville debates removing Flock’s fixed plate readers, the replacement vendor is marketing its own fixed plate readers in the footer of the paperwork. Demand 7 exists for exactly this.
One-day epilogue: at the August 20 agenda briefing, hours after these records went public, Kim Roney asked for the ACEIP documents to be posted to the city’s transparency dashboard, and an exchange about the advisory committee produced this, from the dais: “it is a committee of eight people and 16 people… we don’t know who’s” on it. Sitting council members, unsure who writes the surveillance policy. For the concluded workgroup, the notes above are the answer.
The documents
All seven, with the public links and this site’s archived copies:
| Document | Public link | Archived |
|---|---|---|
| Policy 1703, final draft (undated) | Drive | copy |
| Policy 1703, draft of June 25, 2026 | Drive | copy |
| Policy 1703, draft of June 29, 2026 | Drive | copy |
| Policy 1703, draft of July 9, 2026 | Drive | copy |
| RTIC Stakeholder Policy Workgroup meeting notes (June 11 – July 23) | Drive | copy |
| ACEIP opt-out email chain (July 15–16) | Drive | copy |
| Axon contract / DOJ grant email chain (July 8–16) | Drive | copy |
A sourcing note: the workgroup quotes above come from APD’s own meeting minutes, which summarize rather than transcribe; where the notes render someone in the first person we’ve quoted the notes exactly, but treat them as the department’s record of what was said, not a recording. And one spelling correction made site-wide with this release: the city’s own records (including his email address) spell the deputy chief’s name Sean Aardema; WLOS’s coverage, which several pages here cite, spells it Shawn.
Related: Promise Tracker · What Axon Contracts Do · Documents · Jackie Stepp · Jimmy Wingo · Quentin Miller · Getting Flock Out · Records Center