You may have seen a viral clip of a drone following two women through a retail store parking lot in Concord, California. The video is set to music, and the first-person view (FPV) drone appears to follow the women closely as they run through the lot.
While the original clip does not identify the drone as police-operated, versions reposted on social media have added captions suggesting it shows police using a drone to pursue retail-theft suspects.
Law enforcement agencies increasingly use Drone as First Responder (DFR) programs to support responses to calls, including burglary, theft and robbery reports. The Redmond Police Department’s Drone as First Responder tracked a shoplifting suspect across parking lots and ultimately helped officers make an arrest. Brookhaven Police similarly used a drone to track a fleeing shoplifting suspect.
The concern is that FPV drone footage is shared and reposted across numerous social media platforms. The issue is bigger than correcting one viral video. We are entering an environment where privately operated drones, edited video, AI-generated content, security footage and authentic police video can be misattributed or stripped of context as people scroll social media.
A viewer sees an aerial camera following two people through a parking lot. Someone adds music, graphics or text claiming that police are using drones to chase thieves. The video gets reposted thousands of times. Within hours, the public may accept something as a police operation that never involved law enforcement.
As the PIO, how do you prove the drone is — or is not — yours?
A clear response plan can help agencies address the immediate claim while reinforcing public understanding of their actual drone program.
Correct the attribution without validating the underlying claim.
A PIO should be careful about saying, “This is not our drone footage of shoplifters.” That wording inadvertently accepts that the people shown are shoplifters. A better statement would be: “We are aware of a video circulating online that appears to show a drone following individuals in a parking lot. The drone shown in that video was not operated by our department, and the video was not produced or released by our agency.”
Explain how the public can identify authentic agency content.
Agencies should make it easy for the public to verify official content. Tell people where official drone footage will appear: the agency website, verified social accounts and news releases. Agencies can also consider using a watermark or standardized graphic package on released drone footage. The public needs an answer to: How do I know this really came from you?
Explain your actual drone program before misinformation forces you to.
If an agency operates drones, the PIO should already have public-facing information explaining what they are used for, who operates them, when they may be deployed, what happens to recordings, and what policies govern their use. Otherwise, a fake, misattributed or misleading video becomes the public’s introduction to the program.
Don’t chase every fake. Correct consequential misinformation.
A random post with 200 views probably does not require an agency response. A viral video generating media calls, community concern, or questions about surveillance probably does. The PIO needs a threshold for when misinformation moves from internet noise into an agency reputation issue.
Show people the difference instead of simply denying it.
If appropriate, an agency could publish an educational post showing what authentic agency drone footage looks like, how to identify it, where it is released, and where residents can verify questionable videos. That turns a reactive correction into a media literacy moment.
Editing style is not evidence of source
There is another wrinkle worth addressing. Police departments themselves sometimes edit drone footage for social media. San Francisco Police previously released a drone video of a vehicle break-in that included sound effects and a soundtrack. That means we cannot simply tell the public, “If it has music or dramatic editing, it isn’t police footage.”
3 ARMED AUTO BURGLARS ARRESTED: SFPD's Drone + ALPR helped officers arrest this crew last week. Hard-working officers and new tech have led to an over 56% DROP in auto burglaries. pic.twitter.com/kztV57eoce
— San Francisco Police (@SFPD) August 29, 2024
That makes source verification much more important than visual appearance. In an era when anyone with a drone and editing software can create something that looks like police surveillance footage, law enforcement agencies can no longer rely on appearance to establish authenticity. PIOs can help the public understand how to verify the source.