Travis County Sheriff | Sheriff's Office drones
The Sheriff's Office has flown drones since late 2019. Its report to the legislature counts 1,304 flights in 2023 and 2024, at a two-year cost of $41,136.18.
At a glance
- Flights, 2023 and 2024
- 1,304 [1]
- What they were for
- 263 criminal investigations aided, and 27 law enforcement operations other than a criminal investigation. The flight log's most common purposes are training, accident investigation and aerial support for law enforcement [1]
- Cost, 2023 and 2024
- $41,136.18: $22,736.00 for aircraft, $142.00 in repairs, $6,359.18 in other equipment and $11,899.00 in licensing [1]
- Aircraft bought in the period
- A DJI Matrice 350 RTK with an H20T payload ($18,938.00, January 2024) and a DJI Mavic 3 Enterprise ($3,788.00, April 2024) [1]
- Software
- DroneSense, renewed at $8,400.00 and $2,600.00, and one perpetual Pix4Dreact license at $899.00. The county accepted three CAPCOG-funded DroneSense licenses in 2022 [1] [5]
- When it started
- Pilots certified in 2019, use of drones implemented in late 2019, under rules the office adopted for itself under Texas Government Code section 423.007 [1]
- Where they flew
- the log records every location as "Travis County, Texas" rather than an address or a neighborhood [1]
How it happened
- Debate
A task force, and a promise to ask the public
The Court authorizes the County Executive of Emergency Services to convene a task force "to develop standard County policies related to the use of UAS for consideration by the Commissioners Court", and authorizes staff "to solicit feedback from the community related to the potential use of UAS by County Departments". Added to the consent agenda. [2]
- Context
A status report
The Court receives a report on the status of the task force. Added to the consent agenda. [3]
- Deployment
Drones for the parks
The Court approves a request to establish a program monitoring county park assets and programs with unmanned aerial system equipment. Added to the consent agenda. [4]
- Deployment
The Sheriff's Office starts flying
The office certifies its pilots during 2019 and implements the use of unmanned aircraft in late 2019, under a policy it adopts itself, as its report to the legislature later records. [1]
- Procurement
Three licenses, paid for by the regional council
The Court accepts three CAPCOG-funded licenses for DroneSense, "cloud-based interoperable Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) management software", at no cost to the county. Added to the consent agenda. [5]
- Coverage
The legislature gets the numbers
The office's bi-annual report for 2023 and 2024, prepared under Texas Government Code section 423.008 and published on its website, gives 1,304 flights, 263 criminal investigations aided, 27 other operations, $41,136.18 in cost, and a log of every flight. [1]
Texas requires a law enforcement agency that flies drones to tell the legislature what it did with them. Section 423.008 of the Government Code asks for the number of flights by date, time, location and type of incident, the number of criminal investigations they aided, the information collected about people who were not the subject of an operation, and the total cost. The Travis County Sheriff’s Office publishes its report on its own website, which is how the numbers on this page are known.[1]
For 1 January 2023 to 31 December 2024 the office reports 1,304 flights, 263 criminal investigations aided, and 27 uses for law enforcement operations other than a criminal investigation.[1] The report says the office certified its pilots in 2019 and began flying late that year, under rules it adopted for itself as section 423.007 requires.[1]
What it cost
The two-year total is $41,136.18.[1] The aircraft in it are a DJI Matrice 350 RTK with an H20T camera payload at $18,938.00, bought in January 2024, and a DJI Mavic 3 Enterprise at $3,788.00, bought that April. Repairs came to $142.00, other equipment to $6,359.18, and licensing to $11,899.00, most of it renewals of DroneSense.[1] In September 2022 the Court had accepted three DroneSense licenses funded by the Capital Area Council of Governments, at no cost to the county.[5]
The policy the county said it would write
In July 2017 the Commissioners Court authorized a county task force “to develop standard County policies related to the use of UAS for consideration by the Commissioners Court”, and authorized staff “to solicit feedback from the community related to the potential use of UAS by County Departments”.[2] It received a status report in March 2018.[3] In January 2019 it approved a program to monitor park assets with the same equipment.[4]
We could not find a county drone policy adopted by the Court in its agendas and minutes from January 2013 to September 2026, and we could not find a record of the community feedback. The policy the Sheriff’s Office flies under is its own.
The log says the county, and nothing else
Every flight in the report carries a date, a time in Zulu, a purpose, whether it was criminal, and a column recording what information was collected. The location column reads “Travis County, Texas” for all of them.[1] The statute asks for location. A resident reading this cannot tell whether a drone was over a highway crash or over their street.
What comes next
The county’s Fiscal Year 2027 budget request would replace the office’s DJI aircraft with American made drones, add drone programs for the Constables, and buy Axon’s Dedrone product to detect unauthorized drones over the jail.[6] The Court discussed that request on 1 September 2026 and took no action on it.
What we do not know
- Where the drones actually flew, since the log gives the county as the location for every flight.
- Whether the task force the Court created in 2017 produced county policies, and whether the community feedback it authorized was ever collected.
- How the office decides when a drone goes up on a call, and what happens to footage of people who were not the subject of it.
- Whether the office intends to replace its DJI aircraft with the Skydio and Axon Air equipment in the 2027 budget request.
What you can do
Show up
Systems like this one are approved by boards, councils and committees that meet in public. We have not yet confirmed where each of them meets in Travis County.
What we have documented in Travis County →Protect yourself
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Surveillance Self-Defense →Sources
- 1.
- 2. Travis County Commissioners Court, minutes, voting session, 25 July 2017, item 8 · Meeting record · · accessed
- 3. Travis County Commissioners Court, minutes, voting session, 27 March 2018, item 8 · Meeting record · · accessed
- 4. Travis County Commissioners Court, minutes, voting session, 22 January 2019, item 16 · Meeting record · · accessed
- 5. Travis County Commissioners Court, minutes, voting session, 13 September 2022, item 10 · Meeting record · · accessed
- 6.
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