Pocatello Police | Eleven drones and 77 flights
The Pocatello Police Department's own service level report lists eleven drones, ten pilots and 77 deployments in 2024. Two of the flights it names were over a protest outside city hall and a vigil at Idaho State University.
At a glance
- How many aircraft
- Eleven functioning drones: six DJI Mini, two Autel Evo with thermal cameras, one DJI Mavic 3 and two DJI Avata [1]
- How many pilots
- Ten, training ten hours a month [1]
- How often they fly
- 77 deployments in 2024, two more than the year before [1]
- Approved
- No council decision establishing the program appears in the city records we read. The EFF Atlas of Surveillance records a DJI Mavic at this department from data compiled in 2020 [1] [2]
- A written policy
- We could not find one published on the city website [3]
- What is recorded, and for how long
- Not stated in the report or anywhere else we read [1]
How it happened
- Context
A single drone in the Atlas
The EFF Atlas of Surveillance records that the Pocatello Police Department operates one DJI Mavic drone, from data compiled by the Center for the Study of the Drone at Bard College. [2]
- Deployment
Seventy-seven flights, including a protest and a vigil
The department's service level report for 2025 records 77 deployments during 2024 and lists what they included. The list names locating missing persons, a protest in front of city hall, a vigil for Charlie Kirk at Idaho State University, documentation of officer involved shooting investigations, a homicide suspect arrest, a shooting scene, a burglary suspect located with the thermal drone, fire scene documentation, and parades. [1]
The plate readers are the part of this department’s work that reached a council vote. The drones arrived without one, at least in the records we read, and the department now has eleven of them.
What the department reports
The Pocatello Police Department publishes a service level report on the city website. Its section on the unmanned aircraft program is short and specific. Eleven functioning drones: six DJI Mini, two Autel Evo with thermal cameras, a DJI Mavic 3 and two DJI Avata. Ten pilots, training ten hours a month. Seventy-seven deployments in 2024.
The EFF Atlas of Surveillance, drawing on research compiled in 2020, records one drone at this department.
The list of what the flights were for
The report does not summarize the 77 deployments. It lists examples, and the list is the reason this page exists. In the report’s own order, it names: locating missing persons; a protest in front of city hall; a vigil for Charlie Kirk at Idaho State University; officer involved shooting investigations, for documentation; a homicide suspect arrested on Surprise Valley Road; documentation of a shooting scene; a burglary suspect located with the thermal drone; fire scene documentation; and events such as parades.
Seven of those nine are the ordinary business of a police department, and two of them are not. Standing outside city hall to object to something a city does is protected activity, and so is gathering to mourn. The report records that a police aircraft was overhead at both.
What is not written down
The report says a drone flew over the protest and the vigil. It does not say for how long, what the camera was pointed at, whether anything was recorded, or whether any recording was kept.
We could not find a written drone policy published on the city website, and no council decision establishing or expanding the program appears in the city records we read.
What we do not know
- Is there a written policy governing when a drone may be flown, what it may record and how long the footage is kept? We could not find one published on the city website.
- How long were the drones in the air over the protest and the vigil, what did they record, and was any of it kept?
- When did the program grow from one aircraft to eleven, and did any of that reach the City Council?
What you can do
Show up
Systems like this one are approved by boards, councils and committees that meet in public. We have confirmed where each of them meets in Bannock County and how public comment works there.
How to show up in Bannock County →Protect yourself
Practical steps to shrink your personal data trail. Our guides publish at launch; until then, EFF's Surveillance Self-Defense is the best starting point.
Surveillance Self-Defense →Sources
- 1. Pocatello Police Department Service Level Report 2025 · Primary document · · accessed
- 2. EFF Atlas of Surveillance, Pocatello Police Department, drones · Dataset · · accessed
- 3. Pocatello Police Department pages, City of Pocatello website · Primary document · accessed
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