Police Drone Data Reveals Lack of Transparency, Privacy Concerns

San Francisco Police drone flight records reveal a pattern of vague and missing data, alarming privacy advocates. Despite criticism from the Public Defender’s Office, the Police Commission has approved a new, more permissive policy. 

The police have deployed more than 10,000 surveillance drones since acquiring the equipment in 2024. Flights have increased rapidly from just 325 in the first year to 6,717 through September of this year.

The Police Department logs drone flights in a publicly available dataset recording time, date, location, reason for the flight and other details. Most are labeled as criminal investigations, citing call types such as “person with gun,” “burglary” or “suspicious vehicle.” But with the increase in their use, more flights have had vague descriptions including a miscellaneous category, or fields that are entirely empty. 

“What they’re telling us they’re using it for, literally in their logs, doesn’t match the authority that was granted them by the Board of Supervisors,” said Brian Cox, integrity officer for the Public Defender’s Office, who for more than a year has spearheaded a community push for oversight of drone technology in policing.

The board has not announced a date for final review of the policy, which the Police Commission passed 5-1 on Oct. 14.

Digital surveillance has become a public issue across many city departments, and this summer the Board of Supervisors approved legislation that included a plan to relax oversight in the name of reducing bureaucracy, to the dismay of privacy advocates.

In 2024, most police drone flights were consistently and clearly documented. But last year, the department deployed 322 drones under “criminal investigation” and provided no call type. In the first nine months of this year the total reached 447. The number of drones deployed for “surveillance” or “misc.” also increased.

Following the passage by voters of Proposition E in 2024, which authorized the police to use drones for vehicle pursuits and criminal investigations, the board passed a policy specifying nine use cases: training, critical incidents, exigent circumstances, missing persons, crime scene investigation, suspicious device assessment and planned operations, plus a broader category for community outreach related to disasters, crimes and vehicle pursuits.

The policy prohibited surveillance for other activities, including monitoring exclusively First Amendment-protected activities like protests. 

In July, WIRED obtained leaked San Francisco drone flight log data and footage, and concluded that police did not always accurately log what they surveilled. For example, one instance of a “person with a gun” appeared instead to document a “seemingly intoxicated man stooped on a sidewalk,” WIRED reported. 

Police Commissioner Kevin Benedicto, who cast the sole dissenting vote last month on the new policy, said police leadership told him that inconsistencies in the flight log stemmed from an update to the data-entry protocol that left unintentional gaps.

“I would like to see more detail in what gets presented to the public,” Benedicto said, “because the public should not have to take anyone’s word for it, and should feel comfortable that there is accountability there.”

The San Francisco Police Department did not respond to questions about the drone flight log. 

Legal violation allegations 

Privacy advocates say that it is the responsibility of the police to demonstrate they are not invading personal privacy or violating the law with drone surveillance. A letter urging commissioners to vote no, jointly endorsed by the Public Defender’s Office and privacy advocates, asserted that drones have been deployed for “patrol or general surveillance outside the scope of the granted authority.”

Instead of telling the police when drones are permitted, the Oct. 14 draft policy specifies only the circumstances under which they cannot be used. It allows deployments, “for a public safety response, to assist in an active criminal investigation, or during training,” in any circumstance outside of six prohibited use cases, including “general surveillance” and “personal business.”

Opponents said the new policy is intentionally over-broad and retroactively approves drone use that the 2024 ordinance forbids. 

“It is damn near certain that the policy is following the reality of how they’re deploying drones, rather than the other way around,” said Manny, an organizer with the anti-surveillance organization DeFlock San Francisco, who gave only his first name. The group also challenges the expansion of stationary license plate reader cameras on city streets, such as those made by industry leader Flock. “We saw that they were doing general surveillance,” Manny said of the increased use of drones, “so they had to catch up.”  

Cox, from the Public Defender’s Office, said this is not the first time the police have sought after-the-fact approval. In 2024, the department acquired drones shortly after Proposition E passed before getting required authorization from the Board of Supervisors, as required by California law. The police department now has at least 98 drones, including from Flock and the locally headquartered Skydio.  

The City Attorney’s Office declined to comment on the legality of the new drone policy, citing attorney-client privilege.

Confrontation at the commission

In addition to the Public Defender’s Office more than three dozen organizations, including Indivisible San Francisco and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, raised privacy concerns before the Police Commission’s Oct. 14 vote. 

The proposed new policy says drone operators should “consider the protection of individual civil rights,” and prohibits deployments “solely for the purpose of monitoring activities protected by the U.S. Constitution.” 

The word “solely” caused a lively debate between Benedicto and Asja Steves, the Police Department’s policy director. Benedicto objected, saying that language “is so broad that that it can make it hard to effectively ensure that the principles and the spirit of the policy can be followed.” He proposed five amendments, none of which the commission adopted.  

Kit, who identified herself as a queer Muslim high school student, said her identities made her especially vulnerable to police surveillance. “The Police Commission needs to implement clear privacy and civil rights protections that are more than just ‘considering’ our constitutional rights,” she said. 

Some supporters of the police testified in favor of the new policy. 

Anna Kearney, president of Stop Crime SF, said the revision “establishes restrictions on indiscriminate surveillance, protects residential privacy and sets standards for drone footage and public reporting. Protecting constitutional rights and giving police the tools to do their jobs are not mutually exclusive.”

After Benedicto’s unsuccessful attempted to amend the policy, and hours of public comment. the commission voted 5-1 to approve. Immediately, City Hall’s room 400 erupted with shouts from the crowd: “Skydio has got to go! The SF people say hell no!”

In an interview, Cox said police leadership should have considered additional steps to consult stakeholders concerned about privacy overreach. “For really big policies, since I’ve been watching the commission for basically the past decade or so, these questions typically go to a working group,” he said.

Benedicto said that even though protesters did not get their way, a working group is still possible in the future, as the police can revise department general orders, as the policy documents are known, at any time. “It’s our responsibility and obligation to update and revise our DGOs,” he said. 

The policy must be reviewed by city supervisors before it is implemented. Manny said advocacy work will not let up. “There is still the fight at the Board of Supervisors,” he said, “and people will make sure that the fight continues.”