Transit Police Drone Program FAQs

Drones are a valuable tool that help Transit Police officers deal with public safety situation more quickly and efficiently. For example, during events that cause crowding around transit hubs, drones can help inform where officers should be positioned to better keep everyone safe, or to quickly help locate a young child that has been separated from their adult. Drones also offer a way to quickly resolve guideway intrusions that can cause significant transit delays.

Guideway intrusions, where an individual has gone into the track area, can cause delays that stretch for hours. Police need to respond methodically and cautiously to locate the individual in tunnels that have several access corridors, and take them into custody without having prior information about the individual’s state of mind or if they are carrying weapons. By using a drone, officers will quickly get information about the person’s location, behaviour and whether they are likely to be an active threat to themselves or others. This lets them mobilize quickly, take the person into custody and get the trains moving.

MVTP’s work environment is extremely unique and requires that drone operators have a very specialized skillset in operating drones. The drones Transit Police uses and the training drone operators receive are targeted to a transit system with tunnel systems, bridges, moving transit vehicles, and enclosed spaces.

Transit Police completed a Privacy Impact Assessment prior to launching our drone program, and have implemented a robust policy that ensures the focus remains on public safety and not public surveillance. Our drone operators make all reasonable efforts to avoid recording personal information not related to the investigation or purpose of flight.

Transit Police has also implemented a robust policy that ensure the focus remains on public safety and not public surveillance. Our drone operators make all reasonable efforts to avoid recording personal information not related to the investigation or purpose of flight.

Flight missions may be recorded and all recordings that are of evidentiary or training value are handled and stored in accordance with Transit Police’s Digital Evidence Management policy. Imagery and/or data that is of no evidentiary or training value is retained for 30 days and then deleted. Any personal information that is captured incidentally will be redacted before the video is used for training or evidentiary purposes.

No. Police must legally justify the use of drones in any criminal investigation or public safety incident, and must operate with all relevant legislation and policy at all times, including the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, the Police Act, the Criminal Code, the Aeronautics Act, Canadian Aviation Regulations and MVTP drone policy.