San Francisco police have steadily expanded their use of drones to investigate crimes, according to new data released this week.
The numbers published by the San Francisco Police Department give the public its first detailed look at an increasingly central piece of the city’s growing surveillance network, which includes license plate readers and live cameras.
The data, which spans May 2024 through the end of August 2025, shows the SFPD has deployed drones nearly 1,400 times since first acquiring the technology…