Start with the fact most California agencies get wrong. Under Cal. Gov. Code § 7070, the definition of "military equipment" opens with category (1): "Unmanned, remotely piloted, powered aerial or ground vehicles." No size threshold, no weight threshold, no cost threshold. Several other categories in the same statute carry explicit exclusions. Category (1) does not. A $1,500 quadcopter is military equipment under AB 481, and so is the ground robot in the bomb squad trailer.
That classification determines everything else, because the ordinance, the use policy, the hearing and the annual report all hang off it. Agencies that decided "military equipment" obviously meant armored vehicles and grenade launchers are the ones presenting to a city council after the fact.
This guide covers what AB 481 (2021, codified at Gov. Code §§ 7070–7075) requires of a California drone program: who is covered, the ordinance sequencing that catches program managers mid-procurement, the four findings your governing body must make, what belongs in the policy and the annual report, and the DOJ enforcement guidance issued in October 2024. It describes requirements; it is not legal advice, and every policy and staff report here should go through agency counsel.
Why a $1,500 quadcopter is military equipment under AB 481
The recurring error is reading "military equipment" as a standard rather than a list. AB 481 does not ask whether equipment is militarized or whether it came from the 1033 program. Section 7070 enumerates categories, and if your equipment falls inside one it is covered, no matter how ordinary.
Category (1) captures unmanned aerial and ground vehicles. The missing threshold is conspicuous rather than accidental, because the Legislature wrote thresholds into other categories in the same list. Reading a de minimis exception into category (1) leaves your agency operating covered equipment without an ordinance — the exact posture the Attorney General addressed in 2024.
The trap. "AB 481 doesn't apply to small drones" is the most common misconception among California program managers. It does. There is no size, weight, or cost carve-out in category (1).
Two consequences follow. An agency flying two small aircraft carries the same obligations as one running a full drone as first responder program; only the volume of the report differs. And a drone donated by a nonprofit, bought with forfeiture funds, or transferred from another division is still an acquisition.
Which California agencies AB 481 covers, including transit and university police
The statute reaches further than "the city PD." Covered law enforcement agencies include police departments generally — expressly including transit police, school district police, and University of California, California State University, and community college police departments — plus sheriff's departments, district attorney offices, and county probation departments.
The failure mode is jurisdictional confusion rather than denial. A university or transit police force sometimes assumes AB 481 cannot apply because it has no city council. It has a governing body — a board of regents, trustees, a transit district board, a school board — and that body adopts the ordinance and takes the annual renewal vote. Its meeting calendar is usually less forgiving than a council's.
State agencies sit under § 7073, which imposes parallel but lighter obligations. If you are at a state department with an aviation unit, read § 7073 with counsel rather than assuming the local-agency workflow maps onto you. It does not.
The § 7071 ordinance requirement and the sequencing trap
Section 7071 requires the governing body to approve a military equipment use policy by ordinance before the agency does any of the following:
- Requests equipment made available through a federal surplus program.
- Seeks funds for it — which the Attorney General reads to include grant applications and soliciting donations.
- Acquires it, permanently or temporarily.
- Collaborates with another agency on its deployment or use.
- Uses it for a purpose, in a manner, or by a person not previously approved.
- Solicits proposals or enters into agreements for it.
Read the last item again. Approval comes before the solicitation, not before the purchase order. The natural instinct is to scope the requirement, put an RFP on the street, see what the market offers, then take a costed recommendation to the council. Under AB 481 that sequence is backwards.
The sequencing trap. Program managers routinely discover § 7071 after the RFP is published, or after a grant application naming the equipment has gone in. The fix is not retroactive: you stop, take the policy through the ordinance process, and re-issue. Put the AB 481 calendar at the front of the procurement schedule.
It also makes the cost-effectiveness finding harder to support, since you lack the pricing an open solicitation would have produced. Sole-source posture compounds that; see the agency drone procurement guide.
Publication, the hearing, and public comment
The proposed policy must be published on the agency website at least 30 days before any public hearing, and considered at an open session of a regular meeting with public comment. Not a special meeting, not closed session, not a consent-calendar item slipped past a skeptical audience. Under the Attorney General's guidance the adopted policy stays posted for as long as the equipment remains available for use.
Deadlines and the annual cycle
For equipment held before 1 January 2022, the statute required agencies to commence the approval process no later than 1 May 2022, with approval within 180 days or use ceased. That window is historical, and mainly explains why a given agency's ordinance is dated as it is.
The standing obligation is the one to calendar: the governing body must review the ordinance annually and vote on renewal. A lapsed renewal is an authorization gap, and equipment flown during it is flown without approval.
The four findings under § 7071(d) and what your staff report must show
The governing body may approve only if it determines all four of the following. Each is a demand on the staff report you write, and the fourth quietly requires that you kept records all year.
| § 7071(d) finding | The determination | What your staff report must show |
|---|---|---|
| Necessity | No reasonable alternative achieves the same objective of officer and civilian safety | Name mission sets concretely — barricaded-subject overwatch, missing-person search, scene documentation — and say why a helicopter, a ground search, or nothing is not a substitute |
| Safeguards | The policy safeguards public welfare, safety, civil rights and civil liberties | Provisions, not intentions: bans on facial recognition, weaponization, audio recording and random patrol; limits on surveillance of protected activity; retention periods; audit logs |
| Cost-effectiveness | The equipment is reasonably cost-effective versus available alternatives | Total cost of ownership against a named alternative — training, currency, software, storage, waiver maintenance — not the airframe's sticker price |
| Compliance history | Prior use complied with the policy, or corrective action was taken | Your own audit results and complaint dispositions. An agency with no flight records cannot support this finding |
Compliance history is why AB 481 is a records problem before it is a policy problem. Year one you approve on a clean slate. Year two, the only honest basis for the finding is documentation you either kept or did not.
What the § 7070(d) use policy must contain for a drone program
Section 7070(d) enumerates the required elements. The statute gives you headings; it does not tell you what a defensible entry looks like.
| Required element | What a defensible drone entry looks like |
|---|---|
| Each equipment type, quantity, capabilities, lifespan, manufacturer | Itemize by make, model and asset number. State payloads honestly — optical zoom, thermal, spotlight, speaker — because capabilities is where vagueness reads as concealment |
| Purposes and authorized uses | Enumerate authorized mission types and prohibited ones. A closed list of call types is far more defensible than "law enforcement purposes." Say who may authorize a launch |
| Fiscal impact, acquisition and ongoing | Separate one-time from recurring and name funding sources, grants and forfeiture included. Recurring cost is dominated by staffing, software and evidence storage, not airframes |
| Legal and procedural rules governing use | Cite actual authorities: your FAA instrument under Part 107 or a Part 91 waiver, constitutional limits, the Public Records Act, your retention schedule |
| Training required before use | Certification path, initial qualification, recurrent currency, and who tracks it. "Manufacturer training" alone is thin |
| Compliance mechanisms and oversight authority | Name the mechanism — supervisory review, periodic audit of flight logs against CAD — and the position or body that performs it |
| Public complaint procedure and response timelines | A real intake channel and a real number of days. A procedure with no timeline is the element most often written as filler and most easily attacked |
Capabilities and compliance mechanism draw the most scrutiny. Understating capabilities surfaces later through a records request. Overclaiming the mechanism is worse, because the annual report must eventually show that it ran.
The § 7072 annual report: six contents and what survives scrutiny
The annual report is due within one year of approval and annually thereafter. Section 7072 requires all six of:
- A summary of how each type of equipment was used and for what purposes.
- A summary of any complaints or concerns received.
- Internal audit results, any policy violations, and actions taken in response.
- Total annual cost by equipment type, including acquisition and maintenance, identifying funding sources.
- The quantity possessed of each type.
- Equipment the agency intends to acquire in the next year.
Within 30 days of releasing the report, the agency must hold at least one well-publicized and conveniently located community engagement meeting where the public may ask questions about it.
Where drone programs fail. Item 1 is the one a program with no flight records cannot write. You can count aircraft from an inventory sheet and pull costs from purchasing, but you cannot reconstruct mission counts, call types, flight hours or outcomes after the fact. If your logs live in a pilot's notebook or an unreconciled spreadsheet, you will write something vague — and vague draws the follow-up.
Reports survive scrutiny on specificity the agency can stand behind: missions by authorized call type, flight hours, deployments that produced evidence, complaints and their dispositions, and audit findings stated plainly. Reporting a violation you found and fixed reads as a functioning compliance mechanism. Reporting zero of everything, year after year, reads as an agency that is not looking.
Reports become targets the other way: aggregate totals with no breakdown, "no complaints received" with no intake channel described, an audit section that says an audit occurred without saying what it examined. That substrate — logs reconciled against dispatch, currency tracking, retention and Remote ID audits — is the subject of the UAS recordkeeping guide, and it must exist before the reporting year begins.
California DOJ Information Bulletin 2024-DLE-13 and the SFPD backdrop
In October 2024 the California Department of Justice issued Information Bulletin 2024-DLE-13, "Guidance for Preparing Assembly Bill 481 'Military Equipment' Use Policies and Annual Reports." It is enforcement guidance, not a statutory amendment — no substantive change to §§ 7070–7075 surfaced through 2026 — but it is the clearest statement of how the Attorney General reads the statute, and it resolves ambiguities against agencies.
Paraphrasing its operative points, except where marked as quotation: permission must be obtained before requesting equipment, seeking funds, or acquiring it, and seeking funds expressly reaches applying for a grant and soliciting or accepting private, local, state, or federal funds. The proposed policy must be posted at least 30 days before any public hearing, and the adopted policy and annual reports must stay publicly available for as long as the equipment remains in use. The bulletin lists unmanned, remotely piloted, powered aerial or ground vehicles as its first category of covered equipment.
On cessation, quoted directly. The bulletin states that "the LEA shall cease its use of 'military equipment' if the governing body does not approve the continuing use of 'military equipment' within 180 days." The practical instruction for drones acquired without permission is the same: stop flying them until the process is complete.
The bulletin exists because of documented conduct. The San Francisco Police Department purchased drones without seeking required authorization, over warnings from its own policy officials — conduct the Electronic Frontier Foundation described as flagrant disregard of the law. The lesson is not about SFPD. It is that the remedy for acquiring covered equipment without approval is to stop using it, which turns an administrative oversight into an operational grounding.
Comparable transparency regimes outside California
AB 481 is unusual for being statewide. Comparable requirements elsewhere are mostly municipal CCOPS (Community Control Over Police Surveillance) ordinances with a similar architecture: council approval before acquisition, a published use policy, periodic reporting. New York City's POST Act (2020) is the best known, alongside ordinances in Seattle, Oakland, Berkeley and Cambridge and roughly twenty other jurisdictions. Outside California the question is whether your city has one, because the compliance work is close to identical.
A separate mechanism, frequently conflated with these laws, governs operation rather than acquisition: 18 states require a search warrant before deploying a drone for surveillance or evidence gathering, generally with exigency and rescue exceptions. That constrains individual flights, is enforced through suppression and civil liability, and operates independently of any equipment-approval ordinance. An agency can be fully AB 481 compliant and still fly an unlawful mission. Check both, with counsel.
Frequently asked questions
Does AB 481 apply to small drones under 250 grams?
Yes. Cal. Gov. Code § 7070 lists "unmanned, remotely piloted, powered aerial or ground vehicles" as category (1) of military equipment, with no size, weight, or cost threshold — unlike other categories in the same statute, which carry explicit exclusions. A sub-250-gram aircraft owned by a covered California law enforcement agency is military equipment and needs a use policy approved by ordinance before acquisition.
Do we need the ordinance before issuing an RFP for drones?
Yes, and this is the most common sequencing error. Section 7071 requires approval by ordinance before the agency solicits proposals or enters agreements for military equipment, as well as before requesting surplus equipment, seeking funds, acquiring it, or using it for a new purpose. Publishing a solicitation first inverts the statute, and the fix is not retroactive.
Does AB 481 cover university and transit police departments?
Yes. Covered agencies include police departments generally, expressly including transit police, school district police, and University of California, California State University and community college police, plus sheriff's departments, district attorney offices and county probation departments. The governing body may be a board of regents, trustees, transit district or school board rather than a city council. State agencies carry lighter obligations under § 7073.
How often must the governing body approve a drone policy?
Initial approval is by ordinance, adopted at an open session of a regular meeting after the proposed policy has been posted on the agency website for at least 30 days. After that, the governing body must review the ordinance annually and vote on renewal. A renewal that never gets calendared creates an authorization gap, and equipment used during it is used without approval.
What has to be in the AB 481 annual report for a drone program?
Section 7072 requires six items: how each equipment type was used and for what purposes; complaints received; internal audit results including violations and actions taken; total annual cost by type with funding sources identified; quantity possessed; and equipment intended for acquisition next year. Within 30 days of release the agency must hold at least one well-publicized, conveniently located community engagement meeting.
What did California DOJ Information Bulletin 2024-DLE-13 change?
Nothing statutory. Issued in October 2024, it is Attorney General guidance on preparing AB 481 policies and annual reports, and it reads the statute against agencies: permission is required before applying for grants or soliciting donations, not only before purchase; policies and reports must stay published; and agencies must cease using equipment, drones included, where approval was not obtained.
Is there an AB 481 equivalent in other states?
Not at state level in most places. Comparable requirements are usually municipal CCOPS ordinances — New York City's POST Act of 2020, plus Seattle, Oakland, Berkeley, Cambridge and roughly twenty others — using a similar approve, publish and report structure. Separately, 18 states require a warrant before deploying a drone for surveillance or evidence gathering, subject to exigency and rescue exceptions.
Where this leaves you
Work the sequence in order. Confirm your agency is covered and identify the governing body that must act. Inventory every unmanned aerial and ground vehicle you own, lease or were given, with no size filter. Draft the § 7070(d) policy with counsel, spending disproportionate effort on capabilities, the compliance mechanism, and a complaint procedure with a real timeline. Post it for the full 30 days, take it to an open session of a regular meeting, and write a staff report addressing all four § 7071(d) findings by name. Then calendar the two things you will otherwise forget: the annual renewal vote and the annual report with its community engagement meeting.
None of this is wasted outside the compliance file. The flight records, currency tracking, complaint dispositions and audit results AB 481 forces you to keep are the same records that answer a Public Records Act request, a council member's question about where the drone was last Tuesday, and a reporter's inquiry about a neighborhood complaint. Agencies that publish proactively — LA County Sheriff, LAPD and Orange County Sheriff all maintain public AB 481 pages worth using as models — spend markedly less time defending their programs than agencies that treat every question as a document production. That material has to live somewhere you can build a year-end report from without archaeology.