Chicago police drone usage, visualized
Newly-released Chicago Police data reveals the department used drones hundreds of times for a variety of law enforcement purposes, including first response, search warrants, and surveillance of large public gatherings.
The data tranche, covering the period April 1, 2024 to March 31, 2025, was published this week by the Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority (ICJIA). The Freedom From Drones Surveillance Act, the principal statute dictating Illinois law enforcement agencies’ use of drones, requires police departments in the state to annually report data on the time, purpose and location of each of their drone flights to the ICJIA for public release. Last year’s report was the first time Illinois law enforcement agencies were required to report this detailed flight log data, but CPD did not comply. Thus, this is the first time the public is seeing precise data on CPD drone usage. Noir News has created maps and graphs to visualize this data (click here for an additional interactive map of CPD’s drone flight data).
The data shows CPD used drones at least 566 times during the reporting period. Per the data, 256 drone flights were conducted to assist in responding to emergency calls, 152 to surveil special events, 80 for assistance in executing search warrants, 53 times for training, seven to find missing persons, six for traffic crash photography, five for public relations, five to prevent harm to life, and two to prevent the destruction of evidence. Unfortunately, precise information on the nature of the drone usage beyond these categories isn’t included in the data.
While the takeoff time for each flight is listed in the data, flight duration is not. Nor is flight trajectory. Instead, a single address is provided regarding each flight’s location, rendering it difficult to determine what drones were examining and how they were being used in each case.
It isn’t specified in the report, but the locations and times of the flights suggest the 2024 Chicago Pride Parade, NASCAR Chicago Street Race, Fiesta del Sol, Lollapalooza, Bud Billiken Parade and Festival, Magnificent Mile Lights Festival, and 2025 Chinatown Lunar New Year Parade and Shamrock Shuffle were likely surveilled by CPD drones.
Oddly, the data doesn’t list any drone flights until June 3, 2024, even though the reporting period begins April 1, 2024. This either indicates that CPD didn’t fly any drones during those two months, or that the department didn’t report the flight data. Also, there was a surge in drone flights responding to emergency calls around the time of the Democratic National Convention near where protests were held in August 2024. It is unclear whether there was simply an uptick in emergency calls coinciding with the protests, or whether this category was used for flights that surveilled the protests.
The report provides the greatest insight into CPD’s drone usage to date. Still, the lack of more precise telemetry and timing data means it doesn’t entirely assuage fears around broad surveillance and other abuses of drones. CPD did not immediately respond to questions about the data.