TL;DR: As of February 2026, more than 1,000 public-safety agencies in the United States have received FAA waivers to fly "Drone as First Responder" (DFR) programs, up from 976 waivers granted in the first seven years of the program combined [1]. The FAA streamlined its waiver process in April 2025, and in the ten months that followed it issued more DFR waivers than in the previous seven years combined [1]. EFF, summarizing a July 23 analysis by Beryl Lipton, says these drones can capture footage from "backyards, roofs, through windows" and may be integrated into automated license plate reader (ALPR) networks [1]. The ACLU separately counts over 1,400 police departments using drones of any kind, and has called on communities to pause DFR expansion until clear laws exist [2].
What "Drone First Responder" Actually Means
Drone First Responder (DFR) is a model where a small autonomous drone launches the moment a 911 call comes in and arrives at the scene before any officer does, streaming live video back to a dispatcher and to officers already en route. The pitch is simple: an eye on the situation within seconds [1].
DFR programs rely on a specific FAA permission: a Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) waiver, which lets a pilot at a desk fly a drone across town instead of standing next to it. Without that approval, "an officer could not pilot a drone from a desk inside a building and fly it to a call across the city" [1].
The first US program launched in 2018 in Chula Vista, California [1]. For seven years, scaling was slow because of the FAA's waiver review. Then, in April 2025, the FAA "streamlined and sped up the process," and the floodgates opened [1]. By February 2026, more than 1,000 agencies had received Part 91 waivers, more in ten months than in the previous seven years combined [1].
What the Drones Can Actually See
Most DFR programs increasingly lean on AI to launch and navigate the drones from rooftop pads around a city, with one operator flying multiple drones at once [1]. The drones carry HD cameras. What those cameras can capture is the part that should bother you.
EFF writes that the drones "can capture footage from backyards, roofs, through windows," areas "typically inaccessible to a casual patrol officer," allowing authorities to observe subjects "for minutes without them realizing it" and at "distances that leave subjects of surveillance completely unaware of the spy in the sky" [1].
Two companies are turning that live video into something stickier. Flock Safety "quietly turned its drones into 'flying ALPRs' last year," turning routine DFR footage into plate reads that feed Flock's national ALPR network [1]. Axon, better known for TASERs and the Fusus real-time camera system, has reported that its DFR platform is one of the company's "fastest growing sectors" [1].
The ACLU frames the same problem more bluntly: drone surveillance is "beginning to proliferate with little oversight or accountability," and communities should pause adoption until proper laws are in place [2]. The ACLU report, written by policy analyst Jay Stanley, counts more than 1,400 US police departments using drones of any kind [2].
DFR in Practice: Where the Drones Are Going
Campbell, California announced in October 2024 that it had received the first FAA approval to fly BVLOS at night, using "radar technology with electro-optical sensors" [1]. That opened the door for round-the-clock DFR.
The question is what triggers a launch. EFF summarizes a Government Technology analysis of Chula Vista, the original DFR city, finding that deployments often happen in response to low-risk calls, including responses tied to "unhoused people, mental health concerns, and loud music" [1]. A drone dispatched to a noise complaint will, on the way, pass over the surrounding properties, roofs, and yards. The "first responder" frame converts routine calls into emergency exceptions, and the exception gates fall open.
San Francisco illustrates the same point at scale. EFF links to a Wired investigation that found SFPD's drone livestreams were publicly accessible for months, with outside researchers watching live police operations unfold across the city [1]. The security failure here is the same story as Flock's exposed cameras and Axon's password leaks: a video pipeline designed to feed an internal network eventually runs into the open internet, and the footage stops belonging to the agency that flew it.
Transparency: What Cities Have to Tell You
One place the rules actually exist is California. EFF describes the state's AB 481 as requiring police departments to give advance notice before acquiring military-style equipment, including drones, to establish a use policy before procurement, and to provide annual updates on how the equipment is used [1].
EFF also notes that many cities publish portals that log drone flight paths and reasons in real time, and that the EFF's Atlas of Surveillance tracks which departments have drones, including DFR programs, with a focus on department-by-department inventory [1]. The transparency tools exist. The federal waiver process does not require any of them to be used outside California.
What to Watch
A few things can break either way in the next six months.
- Federal rule on DFR: The FAA's "streamlined" process is administrative, not legislative. Any attempt to write DFR-specific rules into FAA Reauthorization or a Part 108 rule would force a public debate that the current waiver pipeline has skipped. Watch for a Congressional hearing or an FAA notice of proposed rulemaking that names "drone as first responder" by name.
- Flock "flying ALPRs" in court: Flock's drone-mounted ALPR capability puts the company's plate-read network in the air, not just on poles. Ground-level Flock cameras have already been exposed for security failures and pushed cities to cancel contracts. A DFR-related Flock lawsuit, or a discovery dump showing what an airborne ALPR has actually caught, would change the conversation.
- State-level DFR moratoria: The ACLU has called on communities to pause DFR until laws catch up [2]. State legislatures have not yet obliged. Watch California, Massachusetts, and Minnesota for a moratorium or warrant-requirement bill that names DFR by name.
- The data pipeline behind the drone: DFR is sold to the public as faster emergency response. The actual mass surveillance vector is the platform underneath: Flock Nova, Axon Fusus, or whatever facial recognition or pattern-of-life database the live feed lands in. Expect more large-city programs like Las Vegas where the donation, the launchpad network, and the back-end analytics all arrive together as a single private package.