The San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) began regularly deploying drones two years ago and has since expanded their use in a way that has outpaced its documented policy and evaded existing local and state oversight of these devices.
The department has a new proposed policy, which continues to be grossly inadequate in protecting privacy and civil liberties. At best, the draft policy continues the SFPD’s pattern of putting vague guardrails on a powerful surveillance tool, but at worst, if implemented, the policy could effectively usher in sweeping, non-targeted, and unspecified general surveillance over the city with few guardrails.
EFF has repeatedly opposed the unaccountable development of the SFPD’s drone program and recently
sent a comment
to the Police Commission, the local civilian oversight body, about the SFPD’s new proposed policy.
The SFPD has been sidestepping oversight of its drones since 2024. In March 2024, San Francisco voters approved a
heavily-funded, billionaire-backed measure
,
Proposition E
, which sought to expand police access to surveillance technology. Among its impacts, Prop E removed drones from oversight required by the
2019 Surveillance Technology Ordinance
. Nonetheless, in its haste to purchase drones after Prop E passed, the
SFPD knowingly violated
California’s
AB 481
, a state statute requiring law enforcement agencies to get approval from their local elected governing body before purchasing military equipment, including drones. Eventually the SFPD
sought retroactive approval
from the Board of Supervisors and, soon after, announced that it would be
launching a drone-as-first-responder
(DFR) program.
Now, San Francisco finally has an opportunity to update the SFPD’s guidance in a way that won’t quickly become stale, as has happened while the SFPD steadily increases the purposes for drone use. Though drones were initially identified as tools to use for specific actions such as
vehicle pursuits and active crimina
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