A police drone in action scanning the sky. Photo / Hawke's Bay Today.
Police are operating a fleet of 150 drones across the country with new trials to explore using the technology to uncover hidden graves, the Weekend Herald can reveal.
Inspector Darren Russell, who is police’s manager of aviation, maritime and border, said they were currently undertaking research and development work to start using drone technology to look for “clandestine graves” in murder cases.
“We’re using technology such as multi-spectral cameras and LiDAR (light detection and ranging) where it looks for disturbances in the ground or a signature from the vegetation as to whether there might be a body buried,” he said.
In the past few years, there had been bodies being buried in homicide cases where drone technology could have assisted police, he said.
Russell, the police inspector in charge of drone-use, also said there was “no intention” to use weaponised drones in New Zealand, but acknowledged some of the country’s criminals or gangs may use the technology in the future.
Data provided to the Weekend Herald under the Official Information Act revealed that since July 1, 2023, police have carried out approximately 14,000 drone flights.
Of the 150 drones owned by NZ Police, there are 44 held at the police national headquarters in Wellington and an even spread across the districts, with Canterbury having the highest count of 16 drones.
Russell said there were no current plans to extend the fleet of drones, with some older models expected to be phased out in the coming months.
Drones were commonly used by police for photographing and mapping crime and crash-scenes because it was more cost-effective than using a helicopter.
The area where the technology was proving extremely useful to police was for high-risk incidents involving firearms, Russell said.
“We’re confident in saying they’ve been real game-changers for our tactical teams and teams on the ground,” he said.
A recent case involving a man who was intoxicated presenting a firearm at his partner when children were present in the home required police drone intervention.
A drone was flown indoors before officers arrived at the scene, allowing them to establish that the man had fallen asleep, Russell explained.
This allowed a police team to move in and safely acquire the firearm without the heightened risk of a live shooter.
Police could also use thermal cameras on drones to check if people were moving around inside a home at night before entering a building, Russell said.
Police Minister Mark Mitchell said drones were used by police jurisdictions all over the world.
“There are clear benefits to the use of drones for efficiency, but I am most interested in them as a tool to provide information and situational awareness to help keep staff safe,” Mitchell said.
“My expectation is that police continue to look for ways to use technology in a safe and lawful way to help improve public safety.”
Russell said police always “maintained an open mind” for how drones could be used in the future but weaponised drones were “certainly not” something they were considering.
“We’ve certainly no intention to use anything that might be weaponised; I haven’t seen any in New Zealand,” Russell said.
In the Russia-Ukraine war, drones have become an increasingly crucial weapon, with President Vladimir Putin ordering defence producers to accelerate drone output.
A potential danger facing NZ Police was if weaponised drones were acquired by criminals.
“We’re always aware that they might be used by criminals in that way at some point in the future,” Russell said.
Drones are also being used by the police to monitor public events.
At last year’s Electric Avenue festival in Christchurch, police used drone surveillance to identify issues early on, tasking officers on the ground to intervene “before someone was seriously hurt”, Russell said.
The live-streaming capabilities of drones means they can be used by police to send live video feed of an event back to district command centres.
It is unclear whether police used drones to monitor the protest at Parliament grounds in 2022 due to the event predating the introduction of the current flight logging system.
When Russell was asked if he thought drones would be used at something like the 2022 Parliament protest if it happened now, he said it was “hard to say”.
“While they are an effective tool, they’re not always the best option for all incidents,” he said.
“I really couldn’t say – it would depend on what we’re trying to achieve.”
In 2023, police used a drone to monitor patched members of various gangs outside the pad of the Head Hunters West chapter in Henderson.
In the Police Instructions Manual for Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems, it said “police must be cognisant of, and comply with, the requirements to protect the privacy of individuals outside the focus of their operation”.
“Care must be taken to avoid the inadvertent capture of images that are not relevant to the target, whether on private premises or not,” it said in the Police Instructions Manual.
A police spokesperson said there were no specific policies for the use of drones at gang events or protests.
Police can use drones to track fleeing offenders and to locate cannabis operations but only in limited instances.
In one case a police drone with a thermal camera was sent up alongside a tracking dog to apprehend an offender, Russell said.
A fleeing vehicle in Christchurch that had evaded a checkpoint and drove at an officer was also successfully tracked by a drone, Russell said.
However, drones were not often used to pursue fleeing vehicles due to the speed and difficulty of flight navigation, he said.
The limited battery life and flight time of drones meant although they had been used to look for cannabis operations this was not consistently done by the police, Russell said.
In searches for missing people, police are hoping to use drones in the near future to allow officers to scan the ocean for the heat signature of a body with a thermal camera.
“We’d be able to search quicker and reduce our use of time and engines on a boat,” Russell said.
Drones could also be kitted out with speakers and lights which meant police were exploring using them to communicate with a missing person.
Russell said an example would be a drone locating a missing person and saying, “we have a team on the way so please hold on”.
Privacy Commissioner Michael Webster said public agencies using drones, including the police, needed to comply with the Privacy Act when collecting personal information via drone recordings or observations.
“This means that personal information should only be collected, shared or used in a way that has a clear, legal purpose and is proportionate,” Webster said.
“Anyone who wishes to make a complaint about the use of drones can contact us and this includes their use by police.”
The Privacy Commissioner had not received any complaints about police’s use of drones.
Webster said complainants would first need to know that the drone had been operated by police and to try resolve the matter with police first.
A police spokesperson said footage captured by police on a drone was recorded onto an SD card, then the footage was within 48 hours and securely saved for future use.
Under the Search and Surveillance Act 2012, police were required to delete all footage once any relevant court proceeding had concluded or three years had passed, unless there had been an order by a judge to extend the retention period.
In the Police Instructions Manual for Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems, it said police must report all privacy breaches in the Security and Privacy Incident Register within 24 hours of becoming aware of an incident.
Police were also supposed to tell people about what they were doing before a pre-planned operation or after an unplanned operation, when appropriate.
Eva de Jong is a New Zealand Herald reporter covering general news for the daily newspaper, Weekend Herald and Herald on Sunday. She was previously a multimedia journalist for the Whanganui Chronicle, covering health stories and general news.
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