{"id":221805,"date":"2026-03-09T22:30:00","date_gmt":"2026-03-10T02:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/09\/nopd-floats-drone-as-first-responder-model-raising-privacy-concerns\/"},"modified":"2026-03-10T00:50:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T04:50:12","slug":"nopd-floats-drone-as-first-responder-model-raising-privacy-concerns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/09\/nopd-floats-drone-as-first-responder-model-raising-privacy-concerns\/","title":{"rendered":"NOPD floats ‘Drone as First Responder’ model, raising privacy concerns"},"content":{"rendered":"

NOPD floats ‘Drone as First Responder’ model, raising privacy concerns<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/thelensnola.org\/2026\/03\/09\/nopd-floats-drone-as-first-responder-model-raising-privacy-concerns\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-03-09 22:30:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: thelensnola.org<\/a><\/p>\n

Drones could soon be used as first responders in tourist areas and in larger districts where officers are stretched too thin, said Anne Kirkpatrick, Superintendent of the New Orleans Police Department, who floated the idea last week on WWL Radio.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the things we have been looking at is using technology\u2014specifically drones\u2014as a first responder. We\u2019re gonna be doing it as a pilot here in the Eighth District, which is the French Quarter and our CBD. But think about the Seventh District, all of that East New Orleans, a huge mass of land,\u201d Kirkpatrick told WWL. \u201cWe don\u2019t have enough officers we can staff out there.\u201d<\/p>\n

The concept would be a first for the city, but not for the country nor even for the metro area. In December, Jefferson Parish announced that it would be using drones to respond to emergency calls, in a move that JPSO described as \u201cthe future of public safety.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Monday, the French Quarter Management District\u2019s security and enforcement committee took the first step toward drone response in New Orleans, as it voted to finance one $250,000 NOPD drone and docking station\u2014the place where the drone parks and deploys from. The NOPD had initially requested the purchase of three to four drones, but the committee only approved one.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The drone project will next be considered by the FQMD\u2019s finance committee, before going to a full board vote.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In 2018, the city of Chula Vista, California and its police department, the CVPD, became the first city in the country to institute a \u00a0\u201cdrone as first responder,\u201d or\u00a0 \u201cDFR\u201d program.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In theory, a DFR program allows police to launch a drone or fleet of drones to an area in order to give officers \u201csituational awareness\u201d \u2013 allowing them a first glance at the scene, the ability to observe people of interest, and a chance to understand the situation better before deploying boots-on-the-ground officers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

One actor in the industry calls it a \u201cforce…<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NOPD floats ‘Drone as First Responder’ model, raising privacy concerns https:\/\/thelensnola.org\/2026\/03\/09\/nopd-floats-drone-as-first-responder-model-raising-privacy-concerns\/ Publish Date: 2026-03-09 22:30:00…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":221806,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thelensnola.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/TheLens_Website_Share-police-drone-0001.png","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-221805","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-privacy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221805"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=221805"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221805\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":221807,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221805\/revisions\/221807"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/221806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}