FOI 0861-2024/25- Drone inventory
Request:
Provide a full inventory of drones that the police force has access to, storing the data in a table disaggregated using the following fields;
- Drone manufacturer
- Model
- Techincal capabilities
- Cost
- Conditions of usage; is it owned, leased, borrowed, etc. If it isn't owned by the police force, please share who the owner is
- List of additional payloads attached to the drone; disaggregated into the following fields;
- Manufacturer
- Model
- Technical capabilities
- Cost
- Conditions of usage; is it owned, leased, borrowed, etc. If it isn't owned by the police force, please share who the owner is
Response:
Extent and Result of Searches to Locate Information
To locate the information relevant to your request searches were conducted within North Yorkshire Police.
Decision
I have today decided to disclose some of the information to you.
I am exempting a response to Q1, Q2, Q3, Q6, Q6a, Q6b and Q6c pursuant to Section 31(1) and Section 24(1) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (the Act). Please see the exemption explanation below.
Q4. North Yorkshire Police have a capital replacement programme which £35K is allocated to and this occurs every three years.
Q5. All drones are owned by North Yorkshire Police.
Q6d. This is included within the capital replacement programme.
Q6e. All equipment is owned by North Yorkshire Police.
Exemption Explanation.
Section 17 of the Act requires North Yorkshire Police, when refusing to provide such information (because the information is exempt) to provide you the applicant with a notice which: (a) states that fact, (b) specifies the exemption in question and (c) states (if that would not otherwise be apparent) why the exemption applies.
Section 31 and 24 are prejudice-based qualified exemption and there is a requirement to articulate the harm as well as carrying out a public interest test.
Section 23(5) – Information supplied by, or relating to, bodies dealing with security matters - Under s23(5) the duty to confirm or deny does not arise if, or to the extent that, compliance with section 1(1)(a) would involve the disclosure of any information (whether or not already recorded) which was directly or indirectly supplied to the public authority by, or relates to, any of the bodies specified in subsection (3). This is an absolute exemption and a public interest test is not required.
Overall harm for s24(1) and s31(1) – Although it is acknowledged that the police service use drones, revealing specific information such as the make, model and technical capabilities would undermine the process of preventing and detecting crime and apprehension of offenders. The information would be of use to those who seek to disrupt police operations as it would, by process of elimination, enable individuals with the inclination to identify where and what specific drones police forces hold, which is detrimental to the use of tactics and effective investigations, allowing those with intent the opportunity to disrupt operational policing.
Factors favouring s24(1) – The information simply relates to national security and disclosure would not actually harm it. Better informed public can take steps to protect themselves. The public have a right to see where public spending is going.
Factors against s24(1) -The risk of harm to the public would increase as security measures would be rendered less effective if those with intent were able to intercept policing drones and obstruct policing procedures. Release of specific information about particular policing tools would disclose forces capabilities and allow steps to be taken to counteract such tools, thus reduce the forces ability to protect the public, which in turn affects national security.
Factors favouring s31(1) –Some information is already in the public domain around police forces using drones for search and rescues and locating criminals. Better awareness may reduce crime or lead to more information from the public. The public would be better informed about force technologies and capabilities.
Factors against s31(1) – Disclosing further information would hinder the prevention and detection of crime and placing the public at risk of harm. Law enforcement tactics would be compromised and lead to an impact on policing resources and would compromise the forces’ ability to protect the public.
Balance Test
The security of the country is of paramount importance and the Police service will not divulge whether any other information is or is not held regarding the use of UAV’s if to do so would place the safety of an individual at risk, undermine National Security or compromise law enforcement.
Whilst there is a public interest in the transparency of policing operations and providing assurance that the police service is appropriately and effectively engaging with the threat posed by various groups or individuals, there is a very strong public interest in safeguarding the integrity of police investigations and operations in the highly sensitive areas such as extremism, crime prevention, public disorder and terrorism prevention.
As much as there is public interest in knowing that policing activity is appropriate and balanced this will only be overridden in exceptional circumstances. The areas of police interest discussed above are sensitive issues that reveal local intelligence and therefore it is our opinion that for these issues the balancing test for confirming or denying whether any other information is held regarding the use of drones, is not made out.
Pursuant to Section 17(1) of the Act this letter acts as a Refusal Notice in response to these parts of your request.
Please note that systems used for recording information are not generic, nor are the procedures used locally in capturing the data. It should be noted therefore that this force’s response to your questions should not be used for comparison purposes with any other responses you may receive.