LEDA Conference Addresses Key Issues Facing Drone Use in Law Enforcement: DFR, Foreign Tech, and More

LEDA conference brings together police agencies from across the country.

By DRONELIFE Features Editor Jim Magill

About 70 police agencies from across the country took part in the Law Enforcement Drone Association (LEDA) fourth annual conference, where participants took part in seminars on various aspects of done use in emergency management operations and participated in flight training exercises.

The conference, held in Bend, Oregon, Sept. 26 through Sept. 29, featured sessions focused on establishing a drone-as-first-responder program, crash/crime scene reconstruction, and maintaining a successful drone program through public transparency and community outreach, Brandon Karr, LEDA at-large board member and public information officer, said in an interview.

More than 150 conference public safety officers and staff members took part in the conference, the association’s largest annual event. Although most participants represented police and public safety agencies based in the Pacific Northwest, the event attracted participants from states as far away as Texas, Minnesota and Hawaii, Karr said.

In addition to the indoor educational and discussion sessions, participants got the opportunity to get some hands-on drone operation experience, flying along a National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)-approved course.

“We do basic pilot proficiency for them, kind of like an annual qualification to show that they are proficient for flight operations,” Karr said. “We talk about how to fly for emergency procedures.”

Police and public service agency drone pilots received instruction in how to handle lost communication link situations, as well as how to perform leapfrog operations involving multiple drones and pilots, in which the pilots learn how to coordinate with one another in order to maintain persistent observation on a moving target.

The conference also featured new-product demonstrations where vendors showed off their wares and allowed participants to get some hands-on experience with their latest drones and gadgets. “The purpose of these conferences is to provide a lot of really good information but also provide a lot of really good stick time so that people can practice flying and practice some tactics,” Karr said.

With membership representing more than 700 police and public safety agencies, LEDA was formed to foster inter-agency collaboration and encourage the implementation of best drone practices among its member agencies.

The group’s annual conference and its smaller, regional events allow members to brush up on their training, earn a needed certificate and discuss the challenges common among all public safety agency drone programs, Karr said.

Among the challenges facing police drone programs is establishing and maintaining the public’s trust.  Making sure the program is operated in a transparent manner, as well as making sure that the controlling agency has a robust community outreach program, are vital components toward securing the public’s buy-in, crucial to allowing police drone programs to operate, he said.

“We talk about how to make sure that you’re doing proper reporting. We talk about federal, state and local laws … to make sure that we all are utilizing drones in a manner that the community would promote,” Karr said. It’s important that the public understands the rules that public service agency drone programs follow to protect the public’s privacy. Another community relations goal is “making sure that everybody understands where we can and cannot fly, when we need a warrant and when do we not need a warrant.”

Another pressing issue facing many public safety drone programs is the rising call by state legislators to ban the agencies from flying drones produces by DJI or other China-based companies. Such bans, instituted to ensure that data collected by American public safety drones does not wind up in the possession of the Chinese communist party, could prove problematic for agencies that have already established UAS fleets, composed primarily or totally of China-based drones.

In Florida, a ban on the use by public service agencies of drones made in “countries of concern” went into effect in April. This put police and fire departments, and some other state agencies, which had already spent approximately $200 million on DJI and other Chinese drones, in a pickle.  (Read the Florida law here.)

The Florida state legislature has sought to soften the blow by allocating $25 million to help public service agencies replace their Chinese-made drones with those from an American or other approved manufacturer.

Karr said LEDA is encouraging its members to lobby the legislatures in their respective states to seek other measures to protect the security of drone-collected data, short of so-called “country of origin” bans.

“We don’t want what happened in Florida to happen again. We understand the concern in utilizing Chinese equipment, but there are better pathways that we can take that it would safeguard our data,” he said. He suggested that other steps that states could take might include mandating the use of third-party flight software for China-made drones, or requiring the installation of onboard computers that allow the drones to be flown completely offline.

Among the other topics discussed at the Bender conference was “Case Law/Search and Seizure for UAS.” As is the case with other educational topics, Karr said LEDA’s instructional sessions try to set a basic standard for searches and seizures, which are applicable in every jurisdiction, regardless of variables in state and local regulations.  “When it comes to providing a standard, you need to have a minimum requirement,” he said. “We try to teach it to where you obviously need to double check with your state, local laws, and then you have to fly in accordance with those.”

In addition to its annual conference in Bend, LEDA also holds regional conferences and training sessions throughout the year. The next regional conference is scheduled to be held in Pearland, Texas, January 31 and February 1, 2024.

Read more:

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• ACLU Calls for Strict Limits on Police Drones. Skyfire Consulting Asked Them Why.
• Dubai Police Introduce Drone-in-a-Box for Faster Response to Community
• BVLOS Multi-Drone Missions in Urban Area: FlightOps OS, FlyTech IL Trial for Israeli Police

Jim Magill is a Houston-based writer with almost a quarter-century of experience covering technical and economic developments in the oil and gas industry. After retiring in December 2019 as a senior editor with S&P Global Platts, Jim began writing about emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence, robots and drones, and the ways in which they’re contributing to our society. In addition to DroneLife, Jim is a contributor to Forbes.com and his work has appeared in the Houston Chronicle, U.S. News & World Report, and Unmanned Systems, a publication of the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International.