In late November, Cleveland police flew a drone over Cuyahoga County Executive Chris Ronayne’s house when demonstrators were protesting the county’s investment in Israel Bonds.
That type of surveillance wasn’t allowed under a policy Cleveland’s Community Police Commission had approved just days earlier. And the policy hadn’t been reviewed by the U.S. Department of Justice and the city’s police monitoring team as required by the consent decree.
The department quickly grounded the drones, but city officials have also said the policy passed by the commission needs some tinkering to clarify parts that may be vague or conflicting. Commission member Piet van Lier said it was likely that would happen next year.
The department has 10 drones – also called unmanned aircraft systems – that the city purchased in 2022 with grant money.
As it stands, Cleveland’s police drone policy is unique among Ohio’s largest cities for prohibiting “surveillance of individuals or groups within large gatherings or for crowd control.”
When Signal Cleveland requested a copy of the drone-use policy for the Columbus Division of Police, the public records unit sent a training document that outlined digital evidence collection rules. In response to a follow-up question, a police spokesperson said the department “does not have any policies specific to the use of drones by Division personnel.”
Akron Police Department’s policy does not address protests or gatherings at all. It mentions complying with “guidelines from the applicable national aviation authority” but not constitutional rights.
The Cincinnati Police Department’s policy does not specifically address use of drones over large gatherings but includes this: “The Department protects the civil rights and civil liberties of all citizens” and “Data collected will not be used to monitor protected activities such areas where a person would have a reasonable expectation of privacy absent a search warrant or exigent circumstances.”
The Dayton Police Department’s policy seems to allow wide discretion for officers at a scene or their commanders: “Authorization for active incidents will not be required[;] pre-planned events, such as search warrants and crowd management will need authorization from the commander or their designee.”
‘A more privacy- and civil liberties-focused policy’
“I’m sadly not surprised” by the lack of protections for protests in drone policies, said Brian Hofer, executive director of Secure Justice, a San Francisco Bay Area non-profit organization that advocates against state abuse of power. “Most policies are unilaterally written by law enforcement.”
More than 1,600 law enforcement agencies across the country are using drones, according to Atlas of Surveillance, a database maintained by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit that defends civil liberties.
A local policy is just one factor in whether and how police can use drones over large gatherings of people.
“It’s generally prohibited on two grounds: First Amendment, and [Federal Aviation Administration] regs about flying directly over people,” said Hofer.
The U.S. Constitution — specifically, the First Amendment — guarantees “the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” In other words, protests are legal. Police can and do monitor protests for law-breaking activity, but drones provide far more invasive views of participants than what can be seen by officers on the ground, fixed video cameras or even aircraft.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) restricts flying drones over people (for safety reasons, not to protect their rights).
Hofer has consulted with dozens of law enforcement agencies across the country on their policies, including Oakland, California. The CPC referred to Oakland’s policy when revising Cleveland’s, according to Brian Ray, a Cleveland State University College of Law professor and privacy expert who helped write it.
The first draft, written by Cleveland police, “was not unreasonable by any means,” Ray said. But because of its authority over police procedures, the CPC was able to create “a more privacy- and civil liberties-focused policy that hopefully better balances the real need for the police to do their job with some reasonable limits.”
You can see a comparison between the early and approved Cleveland policy drafts here.
