A Leak of San Francisco Police Drone Footage Exposes the New Reality of Urban Surveillance

The article reports that real-time Skydio drone video feeds used by the San Francisco Police Department were publicly accessible, exposing full mission footage that captured detentions, searches, streetscapes, buildings, vehicles, and uninvolved bystanders. Privacy advocates and journalists call the exposure alarming, noting SFPD policies that require minimizing recordings and deleting non-evidentiary footage, while observers warn of amplified privacy risks when AI can analyze large volumes of surveillance video.