Chicago-Area Law Enforcement Repeatedly Violated State Drone Disclosure Regulations
Posted on December 22, 2025
According to The Chicago Reader, multiple law enforcement agencies operating in Chicago have failed to comply with state drone use disclosure laws. The report focuses on the most recent of these violations, detailing how the Cook County Sheriff’s Office (CCSO) failed to meet disclosure obligations within the mandated timeframe.
Under Illinois state law, the “Drones as First Responders Act” requires law enforcement to annually disclose to the Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority (ICJIA) the time, location, and purpose of every instance in which a drone was deployed. This is a vital transparency measure governing this nascent surveillance technology, but even its proponents believe it does not go far enough. ICJIA spokesperson Cristin Evans noted that the disclosure requirement does not define any penalties for law enforcement agencies which fail to submit records of drone usage in a timely manner. On top of that, the Drones as First Responders Act is also ambiguous on how descriptive drone deployment justifications must be, leading police departments to supply frustratingly terse records.
Even when law enforcement meets the letter of reporting obligations to the ICJIA, this can reveal concerning patterns that raise questions on the adequacy of police accountability. Case in point, when CPD was found not to have disclosed drone usage in 2023, the department stated that this was because they did not make use of any drones that year. However, as the report highlights, registration data with the FAA indicates that CPD has owned drones since 2020. Unless this equipment was collecting dust in storage in the intervening period, the department’s claim is suspect.
The CCSO’s late disclosure on 2024 drone utilization was not its only, or even most concerning, lapse in transparency. The article also recounts the agency conducting a 2-week test of drones owned by the law enforcement hardware vendor Axon “without any agreement governing the ownership or use of sensitive data collected by the devices”. Recall that Axon, formerly and more widely known as TASER International, is a major supplier of police-worn body cameras across the country, which carry data privacy concerns of their own.
What makes public-private law enforcement partnerships so pernicious is that, any time data obtained by law enforcement falls into the hands of private companies, it becomes far more difficult to audit or account for what becomes of it. Government and the private sector have formed a symbiosis in which each uses the other to get around otherwise pesky strips of red tape. For example, it is now a common practice for law enforcement to purchase from data brokers to evade Fourth Amendment restrictions on search and seizure. Conversely, corporations can mooch off of governments for the latter’s legal sanction to gather sensitive data on citizens.
This specific instance is particularly illustrative of the legal shell game that can ensue when law enforcement contracts private vendors. While the drones provided to CCSO were owned by Axon, they were manufactured by a company called Skydio, in which Axon is an investor. So when reporters pressed Axon on whether it collected data as part of the test, Axon pointed fingers back at the CCSO and Skydio.
The Cook County Sheriff’s office does deserve a modicum of credit for acknowledging its missed disclosure deadline and failure to stipulate data privacy provisions for its test run with Axon. In response to The Chicago Reader’s inquiries, representatives of the CCSO stated that the office is weighing whether tests of private sector products should be governed by special data sharing agreements. Pressure from the media and civil liberties organizations doubtless played a role in nudging county law enforcement in this direction.
Thus, the piece provides a valuable roadmap for civil liberties defenders. With legislation like the Drones as First Responders Act providing a foothold where no meaningful limitations would otherwise exist, supplementing it with enforcement capabilities can afford firming footing for incentivizing departments to comply.
You can read the full report from The Chicago Reader here.
