King County Sheriff | Drones
A published policy and an annual log of every flight, 1,072 of them in 2024, each with coordinates, air time, aircraft and altitude. No Washington statute requires any of it to exist, and no other agency in this site's coverage publishes a per-flight log.
At a glance
- Flights logged in 2024
- 1,072, in the Air Support Unit's published annual report: date and time, incident number, takeoff coordinates, air time, aircraft name and type, maximum altitude for each [1]
- The fleet in the log
- DJI airframes across thirteen logged types, led by the M30 (412 flights), the Mavic 3 Thermal (190), the Mini series (281 across four models), the Mavic 2 Enterprise (77), and the Avata (75 across two models) [1]
- Who else it flies for
- The log records assists to Seattle Police SWAT and to Skagit County, among others [1]
- Policy
- General Orders Manual 9.08, Small Uncrewed Aircraft System (sUAS) Operations, dated 06/24, public in the full manual [2]
- Governing statute
- Washington has no statute regulating public-agency drone surveillance; the 2014 bill that would have created one passed both chambers and was vetoed. This program's paper exists because the agency publishes it [3]
How it happened
- Context
The current policy edition
GOM 9.08 (dated 06/24) governs sUAS operations: FAA public-operator authorizations, flight crew roles, and the handling of recordings as digital multimedia evidence. [2]
- Context
The 2024 flight log publishes
The Air Support Unit's annual sUAS report tables 1,072 flights for 2024. It is machine-readable, not a scan, and its rows include assists to other agencies, from Seattle Police SWAT callouts to Skagit County. [1]
A program that shows its work
Most drone programs on this site are established by a purchase order and then go quiet. King County’s is the inverse. The Sheriff’s Air Support Unit publishes an annual report of its small uncrewed aircraft operations, and the 2024 edition is a table of 1,072 flights. Each row carries the date and time, an incident or case number, the takeoff coordinates, the air time, the aircraft’s name and type, and the maximum altitude above ground. The fleet in the log is DJI across thirteen logged types: the M30 leads with 412 flights, the thermal-imaging Mavic 3 Thermal flew 190, the Mini series 281 across four models, the Mavic 2 Enterprise 77, and the Avata 75.
The log also shows the program’s reach: rows record assists to Seattle Police SWAT and flights for Skagit County, two counties north. A regional resource flown by one agency is exactly the arrangement records requests usually have to excavate; here it is a published table.
The law that does not exist
Washington regulates plate readers and facial recognition by statute and drones not at all. The bill that would have required warrants for drone surveillance passed both chambers in 2014 and was vetoed in full. So every piece of this program’s paper, the policy in the public manual and the annual flight log, exists because the agency chose to publish it. Nothing in Washington law requires either document, and publication by practice can end without a vote.
What we do not know
- The fleet inventory itself (airframe count and cost), which the flight log implies but does not state; in the drafted records request.
- The mutual-aid terms behind the logged assists to other agencies, and who holds the footage from an assist flight.
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 King County.
What we have documented in King 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. King County Sheriff's Office Air Support Unit, 2024 sUAS annual report · Primary document · accessed
- 2.
- 3.
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