On Monday, January 27th, we co-hosted a drone-related event with Portland’s Techno-Activism 3rd Mondays, featuring Portland Investigative Journalist and Researcher Kate Kaye, of RedTail Media. Kate is also Deputy Director of World Privacy Forum.
At the meeting, Kate shared a brief history of drones in Portland along with the findings of her research into how, and how often, the Portland Police Bureau uses drones.
More information about the event is available at https://www.eff.org/event/portland-people-tracking-drones-and-portland-police-bureau, and if you missed it or want to see it again, you can watch a recording of the event here: https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/1053161964?share=copy.
Kate’s handout from the event is available here:
https://redtailmedia.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/RedTailMedia_KateKaye_PortlandPoliceDroneSurveillance_InfoAndLinksJanuary2025.pdf
Follow Kate on Bluesky:
https://bsky.app/profile/katekaye.bsky.social
And, if you’d like to help her defray some of her research costs, you can contribute to her Patreon here:
https://www.patreon.com/redtailreporting
Finally, a shout-out to opal for making the video possible. Thank you! 🙌
Thanks for the info about drones in Portland, Kate! It’s interesting to see how technology is being used in law enforcement. The research on police drone usage seems really detailed and insightful. Big thanks to Opal for the video effort! How do you think the public reacts to the use of drones by the police?