Police Scotland implementation and use of the technology

Police Scotland have been using drones to support their role to protect the public since May 2019. Police Scotland’s main operational drone is the DJI M210 model – a quadcopter with an endurance of 20 minutes – which is used by a number of police forces and commercial users across the UK and globally.

Police Scotland’s M210s have been fitted with a dual sensor camera system including thermal imaging technology. Images captured by the camera mounted on the drone are beamed directly to a ground unit which is operated by a camera operator.

Police Scotland also possess DJI Phantom drones. These smaller drones do not have thermal imaging capability and are primarily used for officer training. There are currently 10 police officers trained to operate the drones; four officers in Aberdeen; two in Inverness and four in Glasgow.

Drones can assist Police Scotland with a variety of incident types from missing person searches to pre-planned event monitoring and aerial photography of crime scenes or incidents. Between 1 May 2019 and 31 May 2021 Police Scotland’s drones were used on 215 occasions. The majority of these deployments were for photographic tasks or to assist in the search for missing persons.

The use of drones by Police Scotland offers several significant advantages. Police Scotland has one helicopter which on occasion cannot deploy due to weather conditions, difficult terrain or if it is assisting an incident in another part of the country. Drones provide a flexible alternative to the helicopter and strengthens Police Scotland's air support capability. Police Scotland's DJI M210 drones can operate in low visibility and can operate in close proximity to difficult terrain (e.g. near cliff faces or dense foliage). Having access to drones and trained officers in Aberdeen, Inverness and Glasgow allows a rapid local police response to incidents that require urgent air support, regardless of whether the police helicopter is available.

The police helicopter consumes large amounts of fuel and is costly to operate. Although a critical asset to Police Scotland, the use of drones as an alternative to the police helicopter also offers significant cost savings and contributes to a reduction of carbon emissions.