AirData, the drone fleet management platform used by more than 444,000 pilots across 232 countries, announced a dedicated Public Safety Program this month targeting law enforcement, fire departments and emergency response agencies.
“AirData has long served public safety agencies, but this program formalizes that with a dedicated onboarding experience built specifically for law enforcement, fire, and emergency response,” CEO Eran Steiner said in an interview with The Drone Girl. “Agencies can now configure and activate a full account in a single online session and be up and running in minutes, making it quicker for them to get in the air.”
In a lot of ways, the underlying platform isn’t really new. But what IS new is a streamlined self-serve onboarding flow that lets an agency stand up a full enterprise account — selecting their number of pilots, aircraft, and add-ons like live streaming and asset management — in a single session rather than going through a sales process.
That could be a big help for agencies turned on by what was previously a more daunting setup process.
How AirData has approached public safety so far
Whereas just a few years ago, programs like the Chula Vista Police Department’s (the first DFR program in the U.S., and an AirData customer) felt like outliers, now it’s one of many.
AirData says it currently has over 1,500 active public safety agencies across 60 regions on the platform. Steiner says the public safety segment grew nearly 70% over the past year, and about 50% of those regions are running dock-based Drone as First Responder (DFR) deployments — meaning automated drones that launch from a fixed station without requiring a pilot to physically be at the scene.
Steiner says the average agency starts out needing to manage around 10 drones. But there’s one thing Steiner was clear about: the shift toward dock automation doesn’t mean pilots are becoming obsolete.
“Manual launch flights aren’t going away,” he said. “SWAT and tactical ops, search and rescue in remote areas, crash reconstruction and mapping — these require a pilot on scene adjusting in real time. Dock deployments provide speed without requiring personnel on scene. Manual launches handle complexity. Every department needs both.”
In situations where a drone can be pre-positioned and launched automatically (like a reported break-in, a fleeing vehicle, a structure fire) a human pilot would be critical to make real-time judgment calls at low altitude in dynamic conditions.
What is AirData and its Public Safety Program?
AirData’s core product automatically logs flight paths, timestamps, pilot data, battery cycles, and mission details without requiring pilots to change their existing apps or hardware. It supports 178 drone models and flight apps, and generates compliance documentation for Part 107, Certificate of Waiver or Authorization (COA) and equivalent international programs.
Its live streaming feature delivers one-second latency video to stakeholders from any phone, tablet, or smart controller. It also integrates with command dashboards including FUSUS and Milestone. Sharing access with a neighboring department for a joint operation is reportedly as simple as scanning a QR code.
The platform also includes a Public Portal — a community-facing tool that gives residents searchable access to an agency’s flight records, with configurable data delay windows and confidentiality controls. Among its customers include the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department uses it.
“It’s transparent, user-friendly, and bridges the gap between technology and public trust,” said LVMPD program manager Steven Oscar in a prepared statement.
That public-facing transparency layer is increasingly important for drone programs that face community scrutiny. Having a clean, searchable public record of where and when your drones flew is a straightforward way to get ahead of that.
AirData’s Public Safety Program lowers the barrier to entry for agencies that want to get a serious drone program off the ground quickly. For departments that have wanted to formalize their operations but haven’t had the time or IT resources to configure an enterprise platform, the new self-serve onboarding is probably the most meaningful change.
With public safety drone programs growing at the pace Steiner describes, the bigger story is that the infrastructure layer of this industry (e.g. the fleet management, the compliance documentation, the live streaming, the public accountability tools) is now maturing in line with the hardware.
AirData’s Public Safety Program is available now at airdata.com/public-safety.
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