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Inspector General issues drone-policy recommendations and reports stalled audit requests from OPD
Summary
The Office of Inspector General reviewed OPD's drone policy (DGO I-25) and recommended clearer purpose language, explicit metadata retention rules, access procedures for defendants and audit logs, and public reporting of deployments. The IG also said an audit of inactive NSA tasks is delayed because OPD has not provided requested materials.
Inspector General Zirvan Malouf and Deputy Inspector General Charlotte Jones presented the OIG's policy assessment of OPD's unmanned aerial systems policy (DGO I-25), and outlined four recommendations and four considerations the office believes will increase transparency and protect privacy.
Key recommendations included adding a clear purpose statement to the policy, explicitly addressing metadata retention (the policy currently says video will be deleted after five days but does not reference associated metadata), clarifying whether criminal defendants and civil litigants may request UAS data, and requiring audit logs to show who accessed, copied or deleted footage.
Jones said the OIG believes OPD's five-day retention of raw UAS video is progressive relative to other cities but flagged the policy's silence on metadata: "The retention schedule doesn't mention anything about what happens with the metadata that's included." She also recommended that the department publicly report deployments (for example, a quarterly or post-deployment summary) to build trust.
On audits, Malouf said the OIG submitted a request for materials to audit inactive NSA tasks but has received no substantive response from OPD since the request was issued: "Since March 24 ... we have received no communication from OPD," Malouf said. That lack of response has created a standoff: several commissioners defended the IG's decision to make the nonresponse public; other commissioners urged private negotiations citing OPD's limited bandwidth while it addresses court-ordered priorities.
Public commenters and several commissioners urged that the OIG make the method for selecting audited NSA tasks public; the IG said the rationale will be posted on the OIG website within a week.
Why it matters: Drones and ALPRs are high-salience surveillance tools with privacy implications. The OIG's recommendations aim to bring OPD policy in line with best practices (data retention clarity, auditability and public reporting). The stalled audit request raises oversight questions about interagency cooperation and capacity.
What's next: OPD has 10 business days to respond to the OIG's draft policy review; the OIG will post the report and OPD's response when received. The commission asked the IG to publish the audit-selection rationale on the OIG website.
