Unmanned Surveillance Drones (UAVs)

1. the number of times your police force has authorised the use of or made use of unmanned surveillance drones or UAVs in each of the following periods for the purposes of preventing or detecting crime:
   i) 1 Jan - 31 Dec 2006 ii) 1 Jan - 31 Dec 2007 ii) 1 Jan - 31 Dec 2008 ii) 1 Jan - 21 June 2009
2. the total cost to your force of deploying these drones in each of those time periods (staff costs, rental, fuel, processing of images etc)
3. the number of unmanned drones or UAVs which are owned by your force.
4. the names of the organisations from which you have rented/borrowed unmanned drones or UAVs during each of the time periods mentioned above.
5. a copy of any rules of deployment used by your force during those time periods.
6. the number of personnel and their rank employed by your force trained to operate or authorise the use of UAVs in each of these time periods
7. the amount of data measured in gigabytes recorded by the UAVs in each of the time periods.
8. the names of all the databases which hold any of the information recorded by these UAVs on your behalf

In accordance with section 1 (1) (b) of the Act our response is provided below;

In relation to all of your questions there is no information held by Cheshire Constabulary.