The Spanish coastal city of Benidorm on the Costa Blanca is a popular beach resort for tourists from all over the world. Especially during peak season, the beaches and pedestrian zones here are packed with people. It is no easy task for local law enforcement agencies to maintain an overview of the situation. To meet this challenge, law enforcement agencies are relying on drones. Over the past ten years, Benidorm has thus become a prime example of police use of UAS.

What began in 2015 as a pragmatic idea to optimize water rescue operations on Benidorm’s busy beaches has, within a decade, grown into a highly complex government drone ecosystem. The impetus for the UAS program came from Paco Albero, who now holds a leadership position in the local police department’s specialized drone unit. While on duty at the beach and along the coast, he recognized the enormous potential of thermal imaging sensors on unmanned aerial vehicles. The conventional method of

searching for missing persons using inflatable boats was inefficient and extremely time-consuming. The bird’s-eye view—often referred to metaphorically in Spanish as “Ojos en el cielo” (“Eyes in the Sky”)—offered the opportunity to drastically shorten search times, minimize risks to first responders, significantly increase the chances of survival for those in distress, and, last but not least, provide a solid foundation for real-time tactical decision-making. These considerations served as the starting point for a comprehensive municipal drone program.

Lack of Experience

However, the practical implementation initially encountered significant administrative and operational hurdles. In 2016, no municipal police department in Spain was yet using unmanned systems for such purposes; there was simply a lack of legal precedents and operational experience in an urban context. It was only through the political and administrat…