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Police May Lawfully Fly a Drone, but That Is Not Authority to Film

Aug 9, 2026 1 min
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TL;DR Eight municipal police departments now run drone units, and the authority to fly is clear — Article 99-16(2) of the Civil Aviation Act exempts agencies performing statutory duties. But that is a flight-safety exemption: a Taipei City legal opinion says it 'may be unable to serve as the legal basis for conducting administrative investigation by drone', and the special-compulsory-measures chapter passed in July 2024 authorises GPS, IMSI-catchers and private-space imaging with no aerial-investigation provision at all.
#drone#police#privacy#taiwan#evidence#law
Table of Contents
  1. 1. Start with the scale: this is routine duty now
  2. 2. Authority to fly: it exists, and it's broad
  3. 3. But that provision authorises flying, not filming
  4. 4. The one provision ever written for aerial evidence-gathering was flagged for removal
  5. 5. This is the same structure as the privacy post
  6. 6. Three things you can check yourself
  7. What this post does not answer
  8. References
Series: Taiwan's Drone Industry, Taken Apart (33 / 38)
Power Plants and Fabs Have No Row in the Civil Aviation Act's Authority Table Who May Bring a Drone Down? Taiwan's Law Authorises the Outcome and No Means of Achieving It

🌏 中文版

The privacy post concluded that the Civil Aviation Act's drone chapter contains no privacy provision anywhere, so anyone overflown is thrown back on the Criminal Code. That post was about a private person filming you with a drone.

This one is the other half: the police filming you with a drone.

The conclusion has the same shape, but the road there is completely different — because government drone use does have a dedicated authorising provision in the Civil Aviation Act. The problem is what that provision authorises.

1. Start with the scale: this is routine duty now

From the Ministry of the Interior's June 2025 ministerial meeting release:

At present the police departments of Taipei, New Taipei, Taoyuan, Taichung, Tainan, Kaohsiung, Keelung and Yunlin — eight departments — have established drone units, and the remaining police agencies are actively planning theirs.

Usage intensity shows up in local public records. Tainan City Police Department's submission to the city's innovation proposal competition, "Eyes in the Sky — Drones in Policing", is specific:

Since establishing its drone unit in 2020, the department has applied it frequently to criminal investigation and event support: 18 deployments in 2020, 32 in 2021, and 43 from January to October 2022.

Uses listed in the same document include criminal investigation (tracking a suspect's escape route, checking whether they carry firearms), aerial monitoring during forced entry, aerial evidence-gathering ("capturing images of dumped waste as evidence, including the area covered, for later use as reference material in court investigation and judgment"), aerial evidence-gathering during expanded stop-and-search, and missing-person searches.

One more figure shows the level of commitment: Tainan subsidises officers who want a drone licence at NT$17,000 each.

So this isn't an experiment; it's duty. And what it produces goes to court.

2. Authority to fly: it exists, and it's broad

Article 99-14(1) of the Civil Aviation Act lists ten operating restrictions on drone activity (no night flying, not above 400 feet, not over crowds…). But Article 99-16(2) gives government agencies an exemption:

Where a government agency (institution) is performing statutory duties such as disaster prevention and relief, criminal investigation, administrative investigation or corrections, and with CAA consent, it is not subject to the restrictions in subparagraphs 2 through 8 of Article 99-14(1).

Paragraph 1 of the same article further exempts government drones from the prior-application requirements of Article 99-13(3) and (4). Article 34 of the Remotely Piloted Drone Regulations mirrors this: when performing those statutory duties, agencies are not subject to the prior-consent requirements of Articles 31(1), 31(2) and 32(1).

That is a complete, explicit, generous authorisation. For police to fly, the legal basis is not in question. Tainan's own document says as much: "because police deployments are official duties, they must comply with the Civil Aviation Act; once a flight application is submitted and approved, they can fly, which greatly improves investigative efficiency."

The problem is in the sentence nobody wrote next.

3. But that provision authorises flying, not filming

In 2022 Taipei City Government's Regulatory Affairs Committee commissioned a legal opinion on exactly this question from Professor Li Ning-hsiu, titled "Legal Issues in Using Drone Aerial Photography as Investigation and Evidence-Gathering in Environmental Cases" — precisely this post's question: can evidence gathered by drone support an administrative penalty?

Having quoted those exemption provisions, the opinion states directly:

However, the aforementioned Civil Aviation Act and Remotely Piloted Drone Regulations do not differentiate the requirements, scope, procedures or effects of drone use across the various statutory duties of different administrative agencies, and may therefore be unable to serve as the legal basis for conducting administrative investigation by means of drone aerial photography; a corresponding legal basis must still be sought elsewhere.

That sentence separates two things: "may fly" and "may film, and may use what was filmed" are different authorisations. The Civil Aviation Act supplies the first and not the second.

Where is the second? The opinion's answer: there is no dedicated law; it has to be assembled from scattered pieces. The analogies it suggests:

StatuteTerm used
Police Powers Exercise Act, Articles 9, 10, 11"technological tools"
Road Traffic Management and Penalty Act, Article 7-2"scientific instruments"
Highway Act, Article 57-1(2)"scientific instruments"
Government Ethics Administrative Investigation Directions"technological tools"

In other words: other fields each wrote an authorisation for their own technological evidence-gathering. Drones did not get one. Current practice is to slot drones into pre-existing catch-all phrases like "technological tools."

The opinion adds an inference worth noting: when a drone's evidence-gathering extends to the airspace above business or commercial premises,

it should arguably be construed as "entering a specific premises," and should therefore follow the procedural requirements applicable to on-premises inspection

If aerial photography counts as entry, then it should carry entry's procedural constraints — inspection during business hours as a rule, prior written notice as a rule, the party allowed to participate, records to be made. Whether any of that happens in current drone operations I do not know and could not find out.

4. The one provision ever written for aerial evidence-gathering was flagged for removal

This is the section I think is most worth writing, because it has a complete paper trail.

On 8 September 2020, the Ministry of Justice pre-announced a draft Technological Investigation Act, seven chapters and twenty-eight articles. CMMedia's summary leads with:

Aerial drones and GPS are added to the list of investigative tools. For evidence-gathering in non-private space, police and investigators may use drones on their own authority, but beyond 30 days it requires prosecutorial approval.

Draft Article 4 read:

Where a prosecutorial affairs officer, judicial police officer or judicial police conducts the investigation described in the preceding article by technological equipment or technique from the air, a case file shall be opened, and the cumulative period of implementation from the date of filing shall not exceed 30 days. Where continuation is necessary, no later than 5 days from expiry, the materials obtained shall be attached with reasons stated and prosecutorial approval sought; each continuation shall not exceed a cumulative 30 days.

The drafting rationale is explicit about why the air needed its own rule:

The scope of information gathered from the air is broader, and prolonged implementation produces a higher degree of interference with fundamental rights, so special regulation is warranted on top of the base provision.

It was designed carefully, too: the period counts cumulative days — "three consecutive days of one hour each, nothing on the fourth day, another hour on the fifth day, constitutes a cumulative four days of investigation" — evidently to stop fragmented sorties being used to dodge the limit.

That draft was withdrawn, after criticism of its five-day pre-announcement window and of provisions such as government-implanted trojans.

The next turn is recorded in a Judicial Reform Foundation seminar write-up:

The Technological Investigation Act began as a standalone draft pushed by the Ministry of Justice, but was blocked over concerns about excessive executive power and weak oversight. Ultimately, the version passed by the Executive Yuan in 2024 chose to fold its core measures into a chapter of the Code of Criminal Procedure.

In the draft then under review, aerial investigation was Article 153-2. And then — the Ministry of Justice's own written submission to the Legislative Yuan raised a reservation about that article (see the Judiciary and Legal Affairs Committee's consolidated review materials):

(3) On draft Article 153-2 Aerial investigation is generally understood to mean evidence-gathering from the air by aerial or unmanned aircraft. However, external comment holds that the term "aerial investigation" is imprecise — whether filming by a camera mounted on a lamp post falls within it seems liable to dispute. Moreover, a drone may carry other technological investigation equipment, for instance GPS or IMSI-catcher positioning equipment, or even a camera pointed into indoor space; in such cases one must still return to the respective provisions on GPS, IMSI-catcher positioning and investigation of indoor space, and proceed under those procedures. Whether aerial investigation genuinely requires separate regulation is respectfully submitted for further consideration.

And the following month, it was gone.

On 16 July 2024 the Legislative Yuan passed the Code of Criminal Procedure amendment at third reading, adding Chapter 11-1 of Book 1, "Special Compulsory Measures" (Judicial Yuan release), promulgated on 31 July 2024 as Articles 153-1 through 153-10.

Which three measures did the enacted chapter authorise? Per Legispedia's summary and several practitioner notes:

ArticleMeasure authorised
153-1GPS and similar position tracking
153-2Investigating a mobile device's location, device number or card number (IMSI-catcher / "M-car")
153-3Non-physically-intrusive imaging of private space (offences carrying 5+ years maximum only)

The enacted Article 153-2 is the IMSI-catcher provision, not aerial investigation. Across all ten articles, nothing addresses evidence-gathering from the air.

There is official corroboration. When the Ministry of Justice reported to the Legislative Yuan in March 2025 on the new law's operation, the implementation data covered exactly those three articles (as at 14 February 2025):

ArticleApplicationsApprovedApproval rate
153-1 (GPS)444295%
153-2 (IMSI-catcher)18817794%
153-3 (private-space imaging)8788%

Those three are the measures the chapter actually operates. Aerial investigation is not among them.

So the full timeline is:

2020-09-08  MoJ pre-announces the Technological Investigation Act; Article 4
            specifically regulates aerial evidence-gathering (30-day cumulative cap)
2020-09-16  Controversy; MoJ says it will reconsider -> the standalone act stalls
2024        Switch to a Code of Criminal Procedure chapter; in the draft under
            review, aerial investigation is Article 153-2
2024-06     MoJ written submission: "whether aerial investigation genuinely
            requires separate regulation is submitted for further consideration"
2024-07-16  Legislative Yuan passes the "Special Compulsory Measures" chapter
            (153-1 to 153-10) at third reading
2024-07-31  Promulgated - three measures: GPS, IMSI-catcher, private-space imaging
            Aerial investigation did not make it in

The only provision ever written specifically for drone aerial evidence-gathering travelled, over four years, from Article 4 of a dedicated act to draft Article 153-2 of the Code of Criminal Procedure — and after the ministry that drafted it suggested reconsidering, it vanished from the version passed the next month.

The Ministry's reasoning isn't unreasonable — a drone is only a carrier, and what should be regulated is what it carries (GPS, IMSI-catchers, cameras pointed indoors), each of which has its own provision. Regulating by capability rather than by platform is defensible, and the three enacted articles are precisely that principle implemented.

But it leaves a concrete consequence: "simply filming non-private space from the air" now has no dedicated provision at all, and the 30-day cumulative cap designed for it disappeared with the article. That cap existed precisely because "the scope of information gathered from the air is broader and prolonged implementation produces higher interference" — a rationale that did not stop being true when the article was dropped.

Put differently: the "seek a legal basis elsewhere" problem from section 3 was still unanswered after the 2024 amendment. Aerial evidence-gathering remains dependent on catch-all phrases like the Police Powers Exercise Act's "technological tools".

5. This is the same structure as the privacy post

Side by side:

A private person films you (privacy post)The state films you (this post)
Rules on flyingCivil Aviation Act chapter, completeChapter + Article 99-16 exemption, complete
Rules on filmingNot in the chapter; back to Criminal Code Article 315-1Not in the chapter; scattered across "technological tools" catch-alls
Dedicated provisionnonethere was one (TIA draft Art. 4 → CCP draft Art. 153-2), not included at third reading, July 2024

The same structure: the Civil Aviation Act is a flight-safety statute. From beginning to end it governs "will it fall, will it hit a crewed aircraft." It does not, and does not intend to, govern "what did it film and what may be done with that."

That's not a criticism of the Act — it was never its job. The real problem is: when a single tool is simultaneously an aircraft and a camera, the aircraft statute has granted a broad exemption while the camera statute has not been written. And the exemption is in force now; legislation is slow.

The scope of the Article 99-16 exemption is worth re-reading: "statutory duties such as disaster prevention and relief, criminal investigation, administrative investigation or corrections." The agencies covered by "administrative investigation" go far beyond the police — environmental, tax, labour inspection, land administration and agriculture all conduct investigations. The Taipei opinion was about environmental cases.

6. Three things you can check yourself

No legal advice, only what's verifiable:

  1. Do local police drone units have published operating rules? Tainan's proposal is a public document from a city innovation competition; other counties may have no equivalent. How many units exist is public; how they are used mostly is not.
  2. Has drone-gathered evidence appeared in judgments? Tainan's document says explicitly that its evidence-gathering is "reference material for later court investigation and judgment." Judgments are public, so you can look up how aerial evidence has been assessed in specific cases — homework this post did not do.
  3. Has the authority for aerial evidence-gathering been filled in since? The 2024 amendment did not include aerial investigation (section 4). Whether any later amendment or interpretive ruling addresses this cell is worth tracking.

What this post does not answer

  • I did not read the full statutory text of all ten articles. Section 4's claim that the enacted measures are GPS, IMSI-catcher and private-space imaging rests on Legispedia, practitioner summaries, and the Ministry of Justice's March 2025 report to the Legislative Yuan listing implementation data for exactly those three — three independent sources agreeing. But I did not obtain and check Articles 153-1 through 153-10 in full, so “nothing in the chapter addresses aerial evidence-gathering” is stated at the confidence of “per those three sources,” not “I read every article.”
  • I did not read any judgments. How the admissibility of drone-gathered evidence is reasoned in individual cases requires reading judgments. That is the material that would best test this post's argument, and I did not do it.
  • I did not ask any police department. Internal operating rules, whether prior approval is required, how long footage is retained — these may exist internally and not be published.
  • Usage data from one city only. Of the eight drone units I found only one public document with year-by-year deployment counts, so "43 deployments" is Tainan's number, not a national one.
  • Nothing on the National Park Service or the Coast Guard. The same Ministry of the Interior release mentions the National Park Service adopting drones, and maritime areas fall under the Ocean Affairs Council. Each has its own authority questions and this post does not touch them.

References

Primary: regulation

  • Remotely Piloted Drone Regulations — Laws & Regulations Database (Article 34: agencies performing statutory duties in disaster relief, criminal investigation, administrative investigation or corrections are not subject to the prior-application requirements of Articles 31(1), 31(2) and 32(1))
  • Civil Aviation Act Article 99-14 (ten operating restrictions), Article 99-16 (paragraph 1 exempting prior application; paragraph 2 exempting official duties from Article 99-14(1) subparagraphs 2–8), Article 2(26) (definition of a remotely piloted drone)

Primary: commissioned legal opinion

Primary: legislative record

Primary: agency documents

Commentary

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