Drone Flights (417A/20)
Request
Please can you tell me how many drone flights have been made in support of West Midlands Police activities in the past three years up to the most recent date.
This should specify which types of activities the drones were deployed for, eg crowd control, gang activity.
Please could you also state where the drones are operated from.
Response
Please find attached our response with regard to the OVERT use of Drones / Unmanned Aerial Surveillance (UAS).
In addition, with regard to any information relating to the COVERT use of Drones / Unmanned Aerial Surveillance (UAS), West Midlands Police neither confirms nor denies that it holds any other information relevant to this request by virtue of the following exemptions:
Section 23(5) – Information supplied by, or relating to, bodies dealing with security matters
Section 24(2) – National security
Section 31(3) – Law enforcement
Section 23 is an absolute class-based exemption and there is no requirement to conduct a harm or public interest test.
Sections 24 and 31 are prejudice based, qualified exemptions and there is a requirement to articulate the harm that would be caused in confirming or denying that any other information is held as well as carrying out a public interest test. Please find this PIT attached (417A_PIT)