by Jo Ellen Nott

Police adoption of drone-as-first-responder (“DFR”) programs is increasing and now integrating with automated license plate reader (“ALPR”) technology to create a potent new form of surveillance, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (“EFF”) reports. Companies like Flock Safety are marketing their drones, specifically the Aerodome, as airborne ALPR cameras, as confirmed by a company vice president.

Flock Safety secured the 23rd spot on the Forbes Cloud 100 list with a $7.5 billion valuation, underscoring its rapid financial success and expansion. Used by law enforcement in 49 states, Flock’s products include gunshot detectors and new American-made autonomous patrol drones in addition to the AI-powered license plate readers. The company’s technology assists 5,000 police agencies and aims to “eradicate almost all crime” by establishing an “always-on security net” across the nation. Flock’s ambitious Nova platform will integrate public and private data, including drone footage, to amplify its surveillance reach.

This combination of technologies increases privacy concerns. ALPR systems already collect location, make, model, and color data on millions of vehicles not involved in crimes, storing it on nationwide sharing networks accessible to federal and out-of-state agencies, including U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Drones, meanwhile, grant law enforcement access to private, fenced-off areas like backyards and rooftops. The marriage of the two surveillance technologies means that a flying camera could soon arrive at every call, collecting sensitive location information on every car in its flight path and massively expanding already vast databases of public movement.

The Federal Aviation Administration (“FAA”) has recently made it easier for police to fly drones “beyond the visual line of sight,” leading to an explosion in DFR waivers. Since a new DFR waiver process began in May 2025, the FAA has approved more than 410 waivers, which make up one-third of the 1,400 DFR waivers granted since the program began in 2018. As law enforcement tech giants like Axon and Flock Safety expand their drone offerings, the danger is that local officials may be unknowingly approving flying ALPRs when acquiring Flock drones.

The problems with this dragnet approach are well-documented: ALPRs make mistakes, leading to wrongful stops, and officers have been caught abusing the databases to track people across state lines, including those seeking legal health procedures.

With drone manufacturers and police also discussing adding further “payloads” – including cell-site simulators, weapons, and microphones – communities must mobilize now to demand tighter restrictions on this runaway surveillance, which aims to map, store, and track personal information without warrants. Civil liberties groups such as the ACLU and the EFF are vocal and insistent regarding the threat to the public’s privacy by the mission creep of drone deployment by law enforcement.

Case law has evolved over the last 45 years regarding the constitutionality of aerial surveillance. The fundamental U.S. Supreme Court cases of California v. Ciraolo, 476 U.S. 207 (1986), and Florida v. Riley, 488 U.S. 445 (1989), from the 1980s established that warrantless aerial surveillance with the naked-eye conducted by law enforcement using manned aircraft from navigable airspace, such as flying 1,000 feet above a home or using a helicopter at 400 feet, does not constitute a search under the Fourth Amendment because the areas observed are considered exposed to public view from a public vantage point.

Importantly, in Kyllo v. United States, 533 U.S. 27 (2001), the Supreme Court concluded that thermal imaging of a home constituted a search for Fourth Amendment purposes, reasoning that law enforcement’s use of a technology “not in general public use” to gather information about a home that would otherwise require physical intrusion constitutes a search and thus requires a warrant. This principle may apply to drones equipped with advanced surveillance technology. 

Recent trends indicate that states are taking the lead in safeguarding people’s privacy against warrantless searches. For example, in State v. McKelvey, 544 P.3d 632 (Alaska 2024), the defendant’s heavily wooded and remote property was surveilled by a low-flying airplane, and a telephoto lens found evidence of an illicit drug operation. The defendant moved to have the evidence suppressed in superior court but was denied. The appellate court reversed, ruling that a warrant is needed for the use of such surveillance techniques. The Alaska Supreme Court agreed in March 2024, writing that the “… Alaskans’ reasonable expectation of privacy in the home and curtilage protects them from targeted surveillance from the air, and law enforcement officers must therefore obtain a warrant before conducting such a search with or without technological enhancements.”

The integration of drone technology with automated license plate readers represents not merely an incremental advance in policing capabilities, but a fundamental shift toward pervasive, warrantless surveillance of American life. While decades-old U.S. Supreme Court precedents permit naked-eye aerial observation, they offer little practical guidance for autonomous drones that can systematically track every vehicle, penetrate private spaces, and feed perpetual location data into vast law enforcement networks accessible across jurisdictions. The Alaska Supreme Court’s recent ruling that targeted aerial surveillance requires a warrant signals growing judicial concern at the state level, but technology is outpacing legal protections at an alarming rate. Without immediate legislative action to impose strict warrant requirements and prohibit dragnet collection, communities face a future where every movement is catalogued, every gathering monitored, and constitutional privacy reduced to whatever escapes the ever-watchful eye in the sky.  

Sources: Electronic Frontier Foundation; Drone White Paper; FindLaw; Police1 

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