Despite a contentious public meeting, the San Francisco police commission voted Wednesday night 5-1 to advance the first departmental policy on police drone use since 2024.
The policy still requires approval from the Board of Supervisors. If passed, it will bar San Francisco police from using drones for a slew of reasons including personal use and “general surveillance.” At the same time, it allows officers to use drones for “public safety,” assistance in an “active criminal investigation” and during training.
The policy’s most significant change is that it will require officers to get a warrant if they are using a drone to explicitly look into the interior of a home or an enclosed private yard.
Other changes, said police department policy director Asja Steeves, officially approve several SFPD practices that are already routine, like using drones to investigate calls for service then having that drone’s operator determine if a human officer is needed.
The new policy also authorizes using drones for “community outreach,” like launching drones to show young students or members of the media how they work, as long as they are approved by someone at the rank of Captain or higher.
The commission meeting was unusually crowded — instead of the usual handful of attendees, around fifty people showed. Many of them spoke out against the policy.
“We really missed the opportunity to have a working group here,” said deputy public defender Brian Cox, during public comment.
Another speaker, who said they worked in tech, told the commission to reject the measure because formally allowing police to use drones for “public safety” purposes was too vague. A better policy, they said, would have specific drone “use cases” explaining when and how they should be used.
Opposition to SFPD’s new policy, “Departmental General Order 10.12,” has been brewing since an initial version was heard by the police commission on Sept. 2, 2026. At the time, a coalition of groups led by the San Francisco public defender’s office submitted a letter in opposition to the early policy, saying that it still enabled poor data security and warrantless searches. In July, WIRED reported that San Francisco police department’s Skydio drone footage was available online, on an unguarded link. In August, Mission Local reported that a case based on drone footage was thrown out of court, because officers misinterpreted drone footage.
Police commissioner Kevin Benedicto, who made the lone vote against the policy, also said that he wished there had been more public input. “In San Francisco and across the country the public has expressed serious concerns about surveillance,” Benedicto wrote. “I share those concerns and as policymakers we have a responsibility to listen to the public and take them seriously.”
In response to community concerns, Steeves told the commission that the language of the drone policy is designed for police officers to easily understand it, and that the use cases allowed under “public safety” will not differ from what police officers currently do.
Steeves also promised that new data protection policies are underway, which will be designed to address concerns around many police technologies, including drones and automated license plate readers. That policy will appear before the commission in several months, Steeves said.
When the drone policy was passed by commissioners, the vast majority of remaining audience members stood up, chanting “The S.F. people say no! Skydio has got to go!” in reference to the drone maker. They then exited the room.
These policies come less than a month after Mayor Daniel Lurie’s office announced changes to the city’s policies around Flock Safety license plate cameras; and they are the first police directive surrounding use of drones since the Board of Supervisors approved the city’s first policies in 2024. Since then, drone-use in the city has exponentially increased.
The San Francisco police department operates 98 drones, 14 of which are launched remotely from the Real Time Investigation Center, according to police spokesperson Evan Sernoffsky.
