Anchorage police drone report lists new 'Drone As First Responder' policy

Anchorage police have operated under a "Drone As First Responder" policy, numbered 7.1, since Feb. 20, according to a city drone report before the Anchorage Assembly Tuesday. It is one of two drone policies the department has issued since 2022. The other, numbered 3.11.010, took effect Nov. 1, 2022. Both appear on the department's policies page.

Mayor Suzanne LaFrance submitted the report, which covers 2023 through 2026. It states the municipality has made no reportable use of facial recognition technology, though some uses are exempt from reporting. The report returns drone data to the public Assembly record, after the department most recently sent that data by email to the public safety committee's co-chairs.

The report reproduces city code's drone restrictions, including:

• No routine patrol.

• No warrantless searches for criminal evidence.

• No weaponization.

• No watching people engaged in constitutionally protected activity.

• No traffic enforcement except for crash investigations.

• No violating reasonable privacy expectations without a warrant or recognized exception.

• No use of city drones by non-municipal agencies.

The report says every police flight was made under a search warrant, for a non-law-enforcement purpose, or under a recognized warrant exception. Flight locations were withheld at the Assembly's request but recorded. An attachment logs hundreds of flight incidents from May 1, 2022, through April 29, 2026. Other city departments flew drones to test equipment or document construction, operations or facility conditions. None of those flights led to arrests or targeted surveillance of a person.

The department presented a draft version of the policy to the Assembly's Public Health & Safety Committee on Nov. 5, 2025. A presenter said 26 rooftop drones could respond to about 87.4% of calls for service, starting in higher-violence areas. At a Sept. 25 work session, Police Chief Sean Case said the pursuit policy lets officers "put a drone up over the top of a vehicle pursuit," though he added that "none of the technology that's mentioned in the policy is even in use yet."

Residents have raised concerns about drones observing homes and constitutionally protected activity. Alaska News previously reported that an earlier version of the report omitted a drone deployment, and the city promised a revision in time for Tuesday's meeting. A separate ordinance limiting surveillance returns to the Assembly Oct. 20.