VicPD is watching you (more than they already were)
In April, VicPD launched a drone program, announcing they would watch people from the sky at “special events, protests, [and] rallies” in order “to help keep the community safe.”
Despite VicPD’s claims, police drones were not new to VicPD, there will be no meaningful limits to how they use them, and they will not keep people safe. The program is also more expensive than has been reported.
No limits to drone use
When VicPD told people it was launching drones this year as a “new tool,” they didn’t mention they’d already been using them for five years.
Screenshot of a video from an April 21, 2024 Vibrant Victoria post noting that “Victoria Police … used a drone to view a unit in a downtown Victoria highrise.”
In a 2024 incident, VicPD and the Greater Victoria Emergency Response Team (GVERT), of which VicPD is a member, used a drone to peer into the apartment of someone who may have been in crisis. VicPD and GVERT were also seen using a drone in 2023.
According to a GVERT annual report, they started using drones in police operations in at least 2020/21.
VicPD’s use of drones through GVERT for everyday police operations, instead of for the large events they highlighted in their 2025 press release, suggests there’s no limit to how they will use them.
We can also see the likely future of VicPD’s drone program by looking at the Vancouver Police Department. Their program ballooned from 1 to 20 drones, with over 1,800 flights in 2024. They use them to fly into buildings “quite often.” And despite VicPD’s assurances that they won’t save footage “by default,” the Vancouver Police says they record 5% of all footage.
In Kingston, Ontario, police used drones in May 2025 to photograph people in their cars to issue distracted driving tickets. When challenged about the legality of what they were doing — CBC quoted a constitutional lawyer who said the police were “on the cutting edge of … violating rights” — they said they would keep doing it unless a court made them stop.
Now that VicPD has their own drones that they don’t have to share through GVERT, there’s no reason to believe they won’t expand the uses for their new dystopian toys.
Burning money in the sky
Reporting that VicPD’s drones cost $30,000 is incorrect. Emails obtained via a freedom of information request (FOI) show they were more expensive than VicPD wants to admit.
VicPD asked for, and got, $30,000 in 2025 to spend on training to operate drones. But according to its budget (p. 17), purchasing the actual drones was going to cost an undisclosed additional amount, taken from their multi-million dollar reserve, which currently stands at $11 million.
How much did VicPD spend on its drones? Despite requesting those costs via FOI, VicPD withheld any actual receipts or quotes. But you can learn a lot from who they were talking to.
A redacted quote MFE Inspection Solutions provided to VicPD.
Emails show VicPD tried to haggle with companies on prices to “make it easier … to have the program approved by the police board.” Having observed the police board for several years, I don’t think VicPD would have had a problem at any price.
Email from VicPD Constable Steve Adams to Robotics Centre.
VicPD wanted two drones. One company VicPD emailed, Skyfront, offers drones for “surveillance as well as sensitive military applications.” It lists costs starting at $46,800 USD for the model VicPD asked about, with prices going up from there.
For the Skydio X-10 drone, which appears to be the model VicPD purchased, the Columbus police department says it paid $34,400 USD each.
At those prices, the two drones VicPD requested could have cost $95,000 CAD. Coupled with the $30,000 in training costs, the drones and training could have cost over $125,000. VicPD also wanted to buy accessories including a parachute.
Email from VicPD Constable Steve Adams to Robotics Centre requesting price quotes for drones, accessories, and training.
Police drones aren’t a one-time cost, either. VicPD’s emails show they also wanted associated software. Paying for software and cloud storage services means the drone program will have ongoing annual costs every year until the department folds.
All the money VicPD spends on drones could have been spent on things that actually keep people safe, like housing or accessible mental health care. Instead, Victoria and Esquimalt councillors allowed VicPD to buy drones as part of its over $80 million annual budget and $11 million reserves.
Surveillance isn’t safety
Before they launched their first sky camera, VicPD was already using extensive surveillance.
VicPD sends dozens of officers to large events and sets up CCTV cameras to watch and record people. And the integrated Crowd Management Unit, which includes VicPD and other local departments, provides “lethal overwatch” at events.
Despite VicPD’s assurances its drone program will “keep the community safe,” the reality is that, as with all police interventions, it will put people at risk.
VicPD’s sky captains will inevitably see something they don’t like. They have to, because they’ve spent too much money not to. They will then tell officers on the ground to arrest people, and a VicPD press release will tell us the drone program is a success, and that the public should pay for even more drones, more training, and more drone parachutes.
What we won’t hear is how officers put people in physical danger through their response. VicPD threatens to shoot someone every three days, uses force against people twice a day, and injures someone every 2.5 days. If their drone cameras see an ambiguous ‘something,’ or they see someone they ‘recognize’ who is simply participating in an event, those people may be subject to police violence.
And if VicPD sees something truly troubling — whether it’s through CCTV, an officer on patrol, or their expensive new flying cameras — it doesn’t mean they’ve kept anyone safe. Any alleged crime VicPD witnesses has, by its nature, already happened.
We don’t have to accept the rightwing definition of safety as CCTV, drones, Ring cameras, “lethal overwatch,” and heavily policed protests. Every dollar spent on technology, police, and jailing people is money that hasn’t been spent on community supports that actually keep people safe.
Targeting protests
VicPD specifically says they want to use drones to surveil protests and large public events.
One likely use of their new drones is to record footage of protestors and organizers to identify who was there. The type of drone VicPD purchased can allegedly identify people from 2,620 feet away.
VicPD says it won’t store drone footage “unless a criminal investigation or public disorder incident occurs.” But those investigations, and the definition of a “public disorder incident,” are up to them. If a protest is ‘unsanctioned,’ then by VicPD’s loose definitions they could start recording and build their intelligence archive to facilitate future action and arrests. And there can be little doubt that VicPD and other police departments will one day attempt to run drone footage or images through facial recognition technology, whether they publicly admit it or not, or whether or not they have formal permission to do so.
VicPD’s recent history includes arresting land defenders protesting the government’s imposition of a pipeline on Wet’suwet’en land. Drones will not improve that record, but they will put protestors at greater risk of arrest when VicPD are deployed to crack down on dissent.
Police technology and transparency
Police like to say that expensive new surveillance technology, like bodycams or drones, will also contribute to transparency. It won’t. Police control the footage, and they will only release it when it suits them, or after a lengthy legal fight.
After VicPD and GVERT shot someone with a “less-lethal round” on August 1, 2025, they deployed a drone to take a look at the scene. The Times Colonist reported that their drone “was attacked by several seagulls before the launch was called off.”
As a test case for transparency, I filed an FOI asking VicPD for its drone footage of the seagull attack, and any emails or other messages about the seagull attack.
VicPD refused to release anything. They said releasing any footage would “harm a law enforcement matter.” They took the same position about any emails, which presumably would have said something like ‘lol seagulls.’
The footage and related emails are likely embarrassing. They are also reminders that VicPD shot someone, so we will almost certainly never see them.
Conclusion
It’s notable that the X-10 drone that VicPD bought, or a close variant, is advertised for military use. An article about a contract to sell X-10 drones to the Spanish Army says they’ve “been adopted by every branch of the US Department of Defense, as well as the military forces of 25 allied nations.”
VicPD has said in the past that its use of military equipment doesn’t mean “the police are militarized.” But it does. It literally does.
Police drones are an invasion of privacy that will be used to target protestors and the public in ways that are easy to predict, and in other ways we don’t yet know.
We do know that investing in police technology puts people in danger through increased police intervention, while indirectly harming people by siphoning money away from community supports.
Ceding the sky to the police will not keep people safe.