Drones Instead of Patrols: Aerial Response Programs Surge in the U.S.

Police departments across the United States are preparing en masse to launch Drone-as-First-Responder (DFR) programs — systems in which a drone reaches the scene of a call before the patrol crew does. According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, by February 2026 more than 1,000 public safety agencies (police, fire and other emergency services) had obtained the approvals from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) needed to automate flights.

A Sharp Rise After the Reform

The information was disclosed through a Freedom of Information Act request: the list names organizations that have received Part 91 exemptions since the FAA sped up the procedure in April 2025. The effect was explosive. From the first DFR program in 2018 up to April 2025, only 976 approvals had been issued, yet in less than a year after the reform the FAA granted more than in the previous seven years combined.

The key change concerns flights “beyond visual line of sight” (BVLOS) and above 200 feet. Previously an operator needed a Part 107 certificate and could fly a drone only within visual range. Now a single operator can “pilot” several aircraft at once, taking off from pads on the rooftops of municipal buildings, and routes are increasingly plotted by artificial intelligence. This, the EFF notes, marks the shift from manual control to autonomous surveillance from the air.

From “Serious” Incidents to Loud Music

Police and equipment manufacturers promise “situational awareness” before people arrive — for instance at traffic accidents or calls involving an armed suspect. Yet a Government Technology analysis of the city of Chula Vista (California) showed that a significant share of flights are prompted by routine, low-risk reasons: complaints about homeless people, cases related to people’s mental state, and loud music.

DFR has become an important source of revenue for companies like Flock Safety and Axon; the latter calls this line of business one of its fastest-growing. The EFF points out that drone video is stored, transmitted and analyzed like any other footage, and turning it into a feed for automated license plate recognition (ALPR) networks is technically easy — Flock Safety has already quietly turned its drones into “flying ALPRs.”

What About Privacy

Flying cameras capture what an ordinary patrol cannot reach: backyards, rooftops, what happens behind windows — from a distance at which a person has no idea they are being watched. A leak of footage from San Francisco police drones showed how easily innocent people can be followed for minutes on end without noticing.

The EFF insists that communities should have a say not only in how a program is run, but in whether to acquire it at all. In California, law AB 481 requires police to give advance notice of any intent to purchase drones and to report annually on their use. Transparent flight logs, clear rules of use and a willingness to shut down a program that isn’t working are, the authors argue, essential conditions for protecting privacy.

Source: EFF Deeplinks