Police Drones in Texas: Warrant Rules, Footage, and Penalties

Police drone laws in Texas are set by Chapter 423 of the Government Code, which lets law enforcement fly drones without a warrant only in a defined list of safety situations, requires a warrant for everything else, forces agencies to destroy footage within 90 days, and backs those limits with both criminal charges and civil lawsuits by affected property owners.¹ The statute reaches further than most people expect because it defines “image” to include thermal readings, infrared scans, sound recordings, and odor detection, not just photographs and video.²

When Police Can Fly a Drone Without a Warrant

Chapter 423 lists specific circumstances in which law enforcement can capture drone images without first getting a warrant. Each one is tied to a defined public safety purpose, and none of them is a blanket permission.

Officers can use a drone in immediate pursuit of a person they have reasonable suspicion or probable cause to believe committed an offense, but only when the suspected offense is more serious than a misdemeanor.³ A traffic violation or fine-only offense does not qualify.

Drones can document a crime scene where the offense is above a misdemeanor, and they can photograph the scene of a human fatality, a motor vehicle collision that caused death or serious bodily injury, or any vehicle collision on a state highway or federal interstate.³ A minor collision on a residential street is not covered unless someone was seriously hurt.

Search and rescue for missing persons is permitted, as are high-risk tactical operations and counterterrorism uses.³ A separate cluster of exemptions covers disaster response: surveying a catastrophe, preserving public safety and protecting property during dangerous situations, and operations during a governor-declared state of emergency. Flood assessment and wildfire mapping fall here.

Within 25 miles of the United States border, agencies have an additional exemption solely for ensuring border security, limited to flights over real property or people on real property inside that zone.

When a Warrant Is Required

Outside those exemptions, Texas law requires a valid search or arrest warrant before police can capture drone images.³ The warrant has to rest on probable cause and describe the location and expected evidence, and a judge reviews the application before it issues.

The consequence for skipping this step is severe. Chapter 423 provides that an image captured in violation of its privacy provisions, or an image captured by a drone in law enforcement’s possession without authority, generally cannot be admitted as evidence in any Texas criminal or civil proceeding.¹ Footage from an illegal flyover is likely worthless in court, which gives the warrant requirement real teeth.

What Counts as an “Image” Under Chapter 423

The statutory definition of “image” is much broader than a photograph. It covers thermal imaging, infrared scanning, sound recordings, and even recorded odor conditions over someone’s property.² A law enforcement drone using a FLIR camera to capture heat signatures from a home is capturing an “image” under this law, and doing it without a warrant or exemption is illegal.

The core prohibition also does not depend on whether the subject could be seen from a public area. Using a drone to capture an image of a person or privately owned real property with intent to conduct surveillance is unlawful regardless of altitude or whether a passerby on the sidewalk could see the same thing.⁴

How Long Police Can Keep Drone Footage

Law enforcement agencies must destroy drone images and data no later than 90 days after capture.¹ The rule prevents agencies from building permanent libraries of footage unrelated to any specific case. If your property was recorded incidentally during a legitimate search and rescue call, the agency cannot hold that footage indefinitely.

Two exceptions extend the timeline. An agency can keep images that serve as evidence in a criminal or civil proceeding, and it can retain footage when there is reasonable suspicion the images contain evidence of criminal conduct.¹ Once the proceeding ends or the suspicion is resolved, the reason to retain the data disappears and the footage should be destroyed.

The Public Reports Agencies Must Publish

Between January 1 and January 15 of each odd-numbered year, every state law enforcement agency, and every county or municipal agency in a jurisdiction with a population over 150,000, has to publish a report covering the previous 24 months of drone operations.⁵ The report must go on the agency’s public website or otherwise be made available to the public.

Each report has to include the number of times a drone was used, broken down by date, time, location, and type of incident; the number of criminal investigations a drone aided, with a description of each; dates, locations, and descriptions of drone operations that were not part of a criminal investigation; the type and frequency of information collected on individuals, residences, or property that were not the subject of the operation; and the total cost of acquiring, maintaining, repairing, and operating each drone over the 24-month period.⁵

The incidental-collection disclosure is the one to read closely. It forces agencies to say how often their drones ended up recording people or property that had nothing to do with the mission. Agencies in jurisdictions below 150,000 are not subject to this reporting mandate, so residents of smaller counties and cities may have no comparable public record to check.

What You Can Do If a Police Drone Violated the Rules

Chapter 423 gives affected residents both a criminal complaint path and a private civil lawsuit. The two operate independently, so a property owner can sue even if the district attorney declines to prosecute.

Criminal Penalties

The criminal consequences scale with what was done with the footage:

Each image counts as a separate offense, so charges can stack quickly when many frames were captured or multiple images distributed.⁶

Civil Lawsuit Under Section 423.006

Property owners and tenants can sue under Section 423.006 for:

An injunction stopping the violation or preventing an imminent one.
A $5,000 civil penalty covering all images captured in a single episode of illegal surveillance.⁷
A $10,000 civil penalty if any of those images were shared, displayed, or distributed.⁷
Actual damages when the person who captured the image shared it with malice.
Court costs and attorney fees for the prevailing party.

All owners of a single parcel count as one owner for penalty purposes, and all tenants of a parcel count as one tenant. The statute of limitations is two years from the date the image was captured or first shared.⁷

Federal Airspace Rules Also Apply

Chapter 423 controls the privacy side, but the Federal Aviation Administration controls the airspace itself. A police drone flight can be perfectly legal under Texas privacy law and still violate federal aviation rules, or the reverse. Most Texas agencies fly under FAA Part 107, which requires a certified remote pilot, generally caps altitude at 400 feet above ground level, and requires visual line of sight; night flights and flights over people are allowed without a waiver only when the aircraft meets specific FAA safety and lighting requirements. Agencies can also fly under a Certificate of Authorization, which the FAA issues to government agencies and can grant privileges beyond Part 107, including limited beyond-visual-line-of-sight operations below 200 feet.⁸ Both layers have to be satisfied every time a police drone leaves the ground.

1
State of Texas. Texas Government Code Chapter 423 – Use of Unmanned Aircraft
2
Justia Law. Texas Government Code Title 4 Subtitle B Chapter 423
3
State of Texas. Texas Government Code Section 423.002 – Nonapplicability
4
State of Texas. Texas Government Code Section 423.003 – Offense Illegal Use of Unmanned Aircraft to Capture Image
5
State of Texas. Texas Government Code Section 423.008 – Reporting by Law Enforcement Agency
6
State of Texas. Texas Government Code Section 423.004 – Offense Possession Disclosure Display Distribution or Use of Image
7
State of Texas. Texas Government Code Section 423.006 – Civil Action
8
Federal Aviation Administration. Public Safety Toolkit