Authored by Adam Bry, Co-founder & CEO, Skydio
This is a special time for drones in public safety. Every day, almost every minute now, we’re seeing incredible public safety stories where Drone as First Responder (DFR) changes an outcome: finds a missing person, catches a suspect or saves precious seconds for an injured person. We routinely hear things like “game changer” and “the most impactful technology I’ve seen” from the agencies and leaders we’re fortunate to work with.
It is an honor and a huge responsibility for us at Skydio to play a role in making DFR happen. I think this is likely the most important and impactful work that I’ll get to do in my career. We always had deep conviction in the positive impact of DFR. Still, perhaps shaped by the early criticism we took for working with police, I thought that public and political will to adopt autonomous drones flying over cities would be the biggest barrier to adoption. When you just explain the idea to someone, it honestly does sound a little nuts. Concerns have certainly been raised —and there are reasonable concerns to raise — but by and large, agencies, elected leaders and citizens are leaning in.
I attribute that to one fundamental concept: transparency.
The pioneering agencies adopting DFR are doing an incredible job of proactively explaining what they’re doing and why they’re doing it (to name just a few: see DFR communications from Minnetonka PD, Colorado Springs PD, Los Angeles PD, Las Vegas Metro PD and Wichita PD’s transparency dashboard, and epic Well Done Wednesdays).
And the nature of DFR, a flying camera, has the benefit of perfectly documenting everything the drone does. These videos have turned out to be one of the most powerful tools for getting community buy-in. When people see videos from DFR, they get it. In fact, it becomes almost impossible to deny the positive impact. DFR is not about the state spying on people in their backyard; it’s about seeing the most critical details at the most crucial moments, like determining whether someone is brandishing a firearm or a cell phone, to keep everyone safer.
To ensure the long-term positive impact of DFR, it’s worth studying the paths taken by other technologies that have had a significant impact on law enforcement: Automatic License Plate Readers and Body-Worn Cameras.
Automatic License Plate Readers
Over the past few years, we’ve seen Automatic License Plate Readers (ALPR) gain adoption in law enforcement (PDF). At its essence, ALPR is always-on — always passively capturing and analyzing footage to identify and track the location of every car it sees. Some ALPR vendors maintain a database that summarizes everything the entire network of cameras has seen, which is searchable after the fact.
There is no question this can be super valuable for solving crime, and I am generally a big believer in ALPR. But it is also the kind of always-on passive surveillance that can violate expectations of privacy.
We’re now seeing a swell of pushback against ALPR. Some of this is inevitable, as some people and organizations will stand opposed to any police funding or police technology. But much of the ALPR pushback comes from questions about vendors. The current market leader in pole-based ALPR has a history of saying one thing publicly but doing another thing privately. Citizens and communities expect data to be treated one way, but it’s actually treated another. This posture on privacy and transparency leaves a lot to be desired: “If you’re not involved in a crime, you shouldn’t be concerned about privacy.”
Body-Worn Cameras
Body-Worn Cameras (BWC) provide insight into the importance of transparency. When BWCs were first deployed, some agencies and officers were concerned that footage would be used to unfairly judge their split-second actions during life-threatening engagements. At the same time, some citizens were afraid they would be spied on with BWC footage. But as BWC programs proliferated across the county, the overwhelming outcome has been a major victory for transparency and accountability (PDF). It has become standard operating procedure for agencies to release BWC footage after major incidents.
Comparison with DFR
In contrast to ALPR, DFR is maximally precise and narrow in how it works. Rather than covering a city with cameras and collecting everything to be searched later, DFR flights result from deliberate decisions by accountable individuals to send a drone to the precise time and place where information can change an outcome. By arriving at the scene first and providing real-time information without officers having to expose themselves to risk, DFR keeps everyone safer. But in addition to changing outcomes, DFR has direct parallels to BWC in accountability and transparency because it documents actions and outcomes on the ground.
Although DFR is less invasive than ALPR, it still creates sensitive data, and success will still depend on community trust and buy-in. We need to internalize some of the painful lessons from the pushback against ALPR.
Future of DFR
My fundamental proposal to all of us involved in DFR — companies, agencies, politicians, officers, deputies and analysts — is to operate with maximum transparency. Our DFR software enables agencies to publish their own transparency portals so their communities can see the flying they are doing. Every mission flown, including the time, date, flight path and purpose, can be automatically published to a public-facing webpage.
Companies shouldn’t have the final word on where and how public safety technology is used — ultimately, it’s up to communities and democratic processes. We are fortunate to work with incredible agencies and public safety leaders across the country who do incredible things with our solutions on behalf of their communities and are establishing a model of transparency and accountability for everyone to follow.
Skydio is the largest American manufacturer of drones used by public safety agencies, critical infrastructure operators and government partners. One of the fastest-growing applications is Drone as First Responder (DFR), where drones are dispatched to 911 calls to provide real-time situational awareness before personnel arrive. As this technology scales, we believe it is critical to share perspectives on how it can be deployed responsibly — particularly around transparency, privacy and community trust — to provide safer outcomes for all involved during critical emergencies.
Visit the NLC Strategic Partnerships page to learn more about organizations like Skydio dedicated to making NLC the premier resource for local governments.
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