Philadelphia police officer Ian Nance held a remote control on stage and flew a drone over an audience of about 10 people inside Willard Elementary School in Kensington on Tuesday night. The miniature aircraft hummed loudly as it filmed the crowd, sending live video and thermal imaging back to Nance’s remote screen.
The demonstration was part of the Philadelphia Police Department’s (PPD) announcement of its new “Drone First Responder” (DFR) program launching in the East Police Division, which includes the 24th, 25th, and 26th police districts.
“This is the future of policing,” said First Deputy Commissioner John Stanford.
Nine Skydio X10 drones — equipped with cameras powerful enough to capture people’s faces — will be operated by nine remote pilots and will soon be flying over Kensington residents. The cameras can capture footage in the dark.
According to the PPD, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has approved the use of drones beyond the visual line-of-sight in Philadelphia. The drones can fly up to 400 feet above the remote pilot, who could be on the ground or at the top of a building.
Deputy Commissioner Pedro Rosario said the drones will increase the capacity of first responders. They will respond to 911 calls and can arrive at a scene faster to give officers perspective, he said. Rosario added that they will also be used for situational awareness in emergencies, support during hostage or barricade situations, provide an “aerial perspective” for crowd and traffic management, and document crimes or accidents.
“Being able to have this drone on site 30 seconds, a minute, before officers arrive, is a big win for us,” said Rosario, adding that it will also increase officer safety.
Rosario said the drones will be “mission specific,” recording during an assignment.
According to Stanford, the PPD will determine which 911 calls the drones will respond to during its launch in Kensington.
“I think that's going to be the process of utilizing this pilot to give us the opportunity to see what works best,” Stanford said. “A lot of things are going to be fluid. It’s going to take some time to narrow down.”
At Tuesday’s meeting, Harrowgate resident Darlene Burton asked if the drones would be used for narcotics arrests.
“Don’t know at this point,” Stanford said. “At this point that's not the mission, the goal right now.”
At an April City Council budget hearing, Philadelphia Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel said he expects the PPD to use drones for narcotics arrests. The PPD also said they planned to use drones to tackle illegal street racing.
Stanford said the city is preparing to use the drones for major events in 2026, including the FIFA World Cup and the 4th of July celebration marking America’s 250th year.
When asked if the drones would be used for protests, Stanford said, “It gives you the ability to have, again, an aerial view that sometimes gives you the ability to respond in different ways, to know what's going on.”
Stanford said they do not know how they will utilize drones in the future but will work with the District Attorney's Office and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
“They are all key components in making sure they hold us accountable and that we do things the right way,” he said.
Rosario outlined what he said the drones will not do: intimidate, harass, or discriminate against any individual or group; target a person based solely on their race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, disability, gender, or sexual orientation; carry weapons; use facial recognition technology; or intentionally record any location where a person would have a “reasonable expectation of privacy,” such as inside private buildings, except when authorized by a warrant.
The launch date for the drone first responder program has not been set, Stanford said. Rosario said they will hold more community meetings about the initiative. A PPD spokesperson said the dates for those meetings have yet to be determined.
The two drones police demonstrated at the meeting were donated by the Philadelphia Police Foundation, which might pay for more, according to Stanford.
Privacy and transparency concerns
Constitutional law and privacy experts have raised concerns about drone use without proper oversight and safeguards in place before implementation. Some experts believe video analytic technology could violate peoples’ reasonable expectation of privacy under the Fourth Amendment.
Paula Sen, an attorney at the Defender Association of Philadelphia and co-lead of its Police Accountability Unit, pointed to the PPD’s problematic history with video surveillance, particularly in Kensington. Sen uncovered that the PPD’s Narcotics Strike Force was secretly using the cameras for narcotics surveillance.
“There are a number of these kinds of technologies that have been employed within PPD over the years, and each and every one of them has been rife with abuses and misuse,” Sen said.
The Defender Association revealed a pattern of the PPD’s narcotics squad using Philadelphia’s citywide video surveillance system to make arrests, sometimes fabricating reports, hiding video evidence, and falsely testifying against innocent people. Sen summed it up as police officers claiming they witnessed incidents when, in reality, the camera captured them, and lying about what the footage showed.
Innocent people have been incarcerated due to facial recognition technology and the “misuse” of surveillance cameras, Sen said.
According to Sen, the video footage collected by the drones will be routed to the city’s real-time crime center. The center already has access to 2,686 city-owned feeds, plus 4,266 from SEPTA and PennDot, as reported by The Inquirer.
Kensington is already highly surveilled by police, both through patrol officers and through police and civilian cameras. Some YouTube channels profit from live-streaming Kensington Avenue.
Sen questions why the drones would be deployed in a community that is already “overly policed” and has a high concentration of police resources. She said that despite Rosario describing their purpose as “mission-driven,” it “doesn’t make it not surveillance.”
Sen recommended the PPD establish clear policies ahead of implementation as well as ongoing independent oversight. She also urged transparent conversations with residents before the rollout, so police can answer questions, address concerns, and potentially prevent misuse before it occurs, rather than trying to “clean up afterward and to cope with the potentially irreparable harms that may occur.”
“This is exactly the thing that I was warning about… deciding to figure it out as you go along,” she said. “This is not a place to experiment. This is a community. These people are people. They're human beings.”
She said this would be a good opportunity for public hearings in City Council or with the Citizen Police Oversight Commission to increase transparency.
“If you cannot answer the basic questions, then you're not ready for implementation,” Sen said.
In a 2023 report, the ACLU stated it does not object to police use of drones in specific emergencies or situations with grounds to believe the drone will gather evidence related to criminal activity or accident scene photography. However, the ACLU strongly opposes using drones for routine, pervasive, suspicionless, or mass surveillance, including regular neighborhood or city patrols.
“A police department should not, and should not be permitted to, deploy surveillance technologies without the consent of the community it serves,” wrote Jay Stanley, senior policy analyst with the ACLU, in the report.
The report also suggests guidelines for first responder drone programs, such as not recording while en route to its destination, and a suggested framework for storing data.
A New York City bill called the POST act requires the NYPD to draft impact and use policies at least 90 days before using a new technology. After each policy is published, the public has 45 days to provide input.
The FAA outlines types of permissible state or local laws to regulate the use of police drones, including privacy related restrictions, like limiting drones where people may have an expectation of privacy—such as parks or schools.
Rosario said the PPD will document every drone flight, with the ability to audit every instance it takes to the air. The police department will log what the drone recorded, its flight path, which drone was used, the pilot’s name, flight duration, and date and time of launch and landing.
“Every time this thing goes up in the air, whether it be for training or whether it be on a mission, it has to be documented,” Rosario said. “To answer any questions, whether it be from legal counsel, media, or the public.”
The PPD established a drone policy in 2018. It has primarily used drones for SWAT operations and rescue missions, according to a February 2024 memo from CPOC.
Kensington resident Roxy Rivera, president of the registered community organization Somerset Neighbors for Better Living (SNBL), attended the meeting and said she looked forward to the drones being “another tool in the toolkit” to combat crime in the neighborhood.
Takeaways from another police department’s drone program
The Chula Vista Police Department (CVPD) was the first in the United States to launch a Drone as First Responder (DFR) program in 2018, becoming a model for police departments nationwide. The PPD cited CVPD as its inspiration.
In Chula Vista, drones have flown nearly 20,000 times since 2018, often being the first to appear above sites of car accidents, domestic disputes, homicides, noise complaints, and overdoses, according to a WIRED investigation. WIRED also revealed that poorer neighborhoods experienced more surveillance than others.
According to WIRED’s review of thousands of hours of Chula Vista drone footage, CVPD frequently deployed drones for minor incidents such as shoplifting, vandalism, and loud music. Drones also responded to a “water leak” and someone “bouncing a ball against a garage.” The city has also used drones to broadcast public service announcements to encampments of unhoused people.
WIRED also reported that residents felt constantly watched, with some afraid to spend time in their backyards. Analysis showed the drones’ “flight paths routinely take them over backyards and above public pools, high schools, hospitals, churches, mosques, immigration law firms, and even the city’s Planned Parenthood facility.”
WIRED reported that privacy advocates argue that the extensive footage “makes it difficult to distinguish between flights responding to specific incidents and mass surveillance from the sky.”
While a CVPD survey found most residents favored drones, a majority were still concerned about recording individuals not suspected of a crime or sharing video with federal immigration authorities.
In 2020, the San Diego Union Tribune reported that CVPD had shared data from its license plate readers with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Although the CVPD logs its flights in a public portal online, WIRED found that one in 10 of the flights lacked an explanation for why they were being flown. A local bilingual newspaper fought for years to get the CVPD to release drone footage.
Sen said the Defender Association has had one conversation about the drone program with the PPD, during which the department presented a similar powerpoint to the one shown on Tuesday. She said they hope to be invited to continue those discussions. She also listed some questions that residents might want to ask, such as where video and data will be stored, how long the data will be kept, and how it will be used.
As of now, Sen said there are no laws in Pennsylvania addressing law enforcement’s use of drones.
“Because we're talking about these rapidly evolving new technologies, the law and meaningful explanation of ethics in this area, as well as regulation, are really lagging behind the implementation and introduction of these technologies,” Sen said. “And that should give us pause. We don't necessarily need to rush into a surveillance state.”
Have any questions, comments, or concerns about this story? Send an email to editors@kensingtonvoice.com.
