<body><div>Bellingham’s police drone program promises faster responses, but raises questions about privacy and transparency Bellingham police say their new Drone as First Responder program can give officers and other emergency responders a view of an incident within minutes of a 911 call. But as the department deploys drones across the city, residents and privacy advocates are questioning how the technology is used, what information it collects and how the public can hold the department accountable. The City of Bellingham and Bellingham Police Department did not respond to requests for comment in time for publication. The Bellingham Police Department launched its Drone as First Responder program on Oct. 6, according to the City of Bellingham’s announcement. Trained officers remotely pilot drones to emergency scenes, where live video is intended to help responders assess situations before they arrive at the scene. <figure><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=0TdQQp_1H0elVDg00" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=0TdQQp_1H0elVDg00" width="638" height="401" ><figcaption>A drone lands on a receiver atop the Bellingham Police Department this month. (Bodey Mitchell / Salish Current 2026)</figcaption></figure>Bellingham joins a growing number of Washington law enforcement agencies using drones to respond to emergency calls. Redmond launched what it describes as the state’s first full-time Drone as First Responder program in April 2024, followed by Everett in 2025. Auburn, Bellevue and the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office announced drone programs in 2026. Bellingham officials said the drones can reach emergency scenes in under two minutes. Three docking locations — the Bellingham Police Station, the Pacific Street Operations Center and Bellis Fair mall — are intended to provide coverage across the city. The announcement also said every flight is piloted by a trained officer and recorded on a public flight dashboard. The camera faces the horizon until the drone reaches an incident, according to the city, and footage captured at scenes is stored in the same evidence system used for body-worn camera footage. The city said only authorized police staff can access the footage. For Lawrence Slagle, who lives across from the police station, the program became visible well before its public announcement. What residents saw Slagle said he first noticed a drone taking off from a docking station near the police department on Aug. 21. On his balcony across from the police station, he watched the drone launch. Slagle recalled seeing flights on consecutive days after equipment was installed around Aug. 17. He shared a video of a drone taking off and landing near the police station. The department’s public dashboard provides a way to review flight activity, including entries organized by purpose. On the dashboard, it shows that police did fly drones on Aug. 21 as part of a “system testing.” Slagle said he is concerned about the possibility of unnecessary surveillance and wants the department to explain when flights began and what they are being used for. “I would like them to state when they actually started using it, even if it was just test flying it,” Slagle said. “I want them to be 100% transparent about when they are using it.”What rules govern drones? Bellingham police’s Policy 605, Unmanned Aircraft System Operations, establishes rules for operating department drones and handling the images and data they collect. The policy says drones may be used for search and rescue, life-safety operations, emergency calls, agency-approved training, traffic and mapping functions, collecting video evidence and supporting fire departments. It also allows drones to respond to and monitor large gatherings that could create a public-safety concern because of the number of people attending. The policy prohibits random surveillance, targeting people solely because of personal characteristics and using the drone to harass, intimidate or discriminate against individuals or groups. Unless officers have a warrant or exigent circumstances, operators and observers must not intentionally record or transmit images of places where people have a reasonable expectation of privacy, such as residences, yards and enclosed areas. The policy directs operators to take reasonable precautions to avoid inadvertently recording those areas. The policy does not specify a fixed number of days that all drone footage must be retained. Instead, it says data must be retained according to the department’s established records-retention schedule. It also requires pilots to complete flight documentation, including the type of mission and its parameters, and calls for monthly reports to the program coordinator. The policy identifies a program coordinator responsible for managing the department’s drone program, ensuring procedures are followed and providing periodic reports to the chief of police. The document does not, on its own, explain how every provision is implemented specifically for the drone program or establish the retention period for footage from individual flights. Transparency can create its own privacy concerns The public flight dashboard is intended to provide transparency about drone deployments. But Beryl Lipton, a senior investigative researcher at the San Francisco nonprofit Electronic Frontier Foundation, said public disclosure can create privacy concerns when flight information reveals the location of sensitive incidents. Lipton also said drone footage can capture people who have no connection to a crime or investigation. A drone’s elevated perspective can collect information about bystanders and their movements, while the storage and later analysis of that information can extend the privacy implications beyond the original flight. She said public flight portals can be valuable accountability tools because they allow residents to see how often drones are deployed and what purposes departments give for using them. But she said agencies should consider whether publishing an exact location is appropriate for every type of call. “Maybe it’s appropriate to say we deployed a drone to a domestic violence situation, but not provide the location of that call,” Lipton said. She said departments could preserve public accountability while limiting the disclosure of details that could expose people experiencing sensitive situations. Lipton cautioned against eliminating public flight information altogether. Without disclosure, she said, residents could have fewer ways to know when drones are being deployed and why. Questions about access and data sharing The city’s announcement says footage from incident scenes is stored in the same evidence system used for body-warn camera footage and is accessible only to authorized police staff. Policy 605 also assigns the program coordinator responsibility for facilitating law enforcement access to drone images and data. It requires procedures for handling evidence and following records-retention schedules. But those provisions don’t answer every question about how information could be accessed, shared or used beyond the department. Lipton said residents should be able to understand who can access drone footage, how long it is retained, whether it can be shared with other agencies and whether access is audited. “Who has share access and why?” Lipton said. “Are you just sharing with any police department that happens to want to have access to it?”She also raised concerns about the relationship between surveillance technology vendors and law enforcement agencies. Lipton said contracts can contain broad or unclear provisions, while new software features may expand what a system can do after an agency has acquired it. “We’re seeing a lot of wiggly language in vendor contracts,” she said.Axon is a public-safety technology company that provides digital evidence management and other tools for law enforcement agencies. The company has partnered with Skydio, the manufacturer of Bellingham’s DFR drones. Bellingham’s contract with Axon includes drone-related services and Axon Evidence, a platform for storing and managing digital evidence. The city’s contract with Axon includes terms for the company’s Customer Experience Improvement Program, which concerns the use of agency content to improve Axon’s products and services. The agreement indicates that the city accepted the program’s terms, but the materials reviewed for this story do not establish whether BPD has shared DFR footage, metadata or other information with Axon through the program. Bellingham Police Department’s Policy 417, Immigration, separately outlines restrictions on the department’s involvement in federal immigration enforcement. The policy says department resources, including personal information, must not be used or shared to assist immigration enforcement. It also directs requests for assistance from federal immigration authorities to the chief or a designee. The policy does not specifically address drone footage or establish whether drone information has ever been requested by or shared with a federal agency. Oversight and public trust Lipton said local governments should establish clear rules before adopting surveillance technologies, including policies governing appropriate uses, access, audits and consequences for misuse. She said public input should happen before agencies acquire or test technologies with surveillance capabilities, rather than after they are already in use. “(People) should know that there aren’t clear laws that, in general, are protecting their privacy or setting limits on that, and so they need to push for that sort of accountability,” Lipton said. (The laws) don’t go so far as to encompass their right to privacy or the extent to which that data can be stored and shared and analyzed later.”She also said departments should not rely solely on assurances that officers will use technology responsibly. “We need real clear rules and transparency on paper,” Lipton said. “We can’t rely on law enforcement to say we won’t use that in a way that is not in line with our responsibilities. We’ve seen them abuse that. We’ve seen companies use that information without their knowledge.” For Slagle, the questions are more immediate. He said the drone’s noise and lights have made its presence noticeable near his home, and he wants the department to be more forthcoming about when it began flying and what each deployment is intended to accomplish. —By Bodey Mitchell Internship sponsored by Puget Sound Energy </div></body>

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Bellingham’s police drone program promises faster responses, but raises questions about privacy and transparency. Bellingham police say their new Drone as First Responder program can give officers and other emergency responders a view of an incident within minutes of a 911 call. But as the department deploys drones across...

Bellingham Police’s new drone program takes flight

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Bellingham’s police drone program promises faster responses, but raises questions about privacy and transparency. Bellingham police say their new Drone as 

Bellingham Police’s new drone program takes flight

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