ACLU Settles Lawsuit with Sonoma County, Curbing Invasive Runaway Drone Surveillance Program that Trampled People’s Privacy

SANTA ROSA — The ACLU Foundation of Northern California has settled a lawsuit against Sonoma County over a runaway drone surveillance program in which code enforcement inspectors spied on residents' homes and the areas surrounding them without first getting a warrant, which our lawsuit argued violated the California Constitution.

Under the settlement, Sonoma County Code Enforcement (CE) will now be barred from warrantless drone surveillance of homes or the areas surrounding them except in certain limited situations, such as emergencies or when the property owner consents. This is expected to drastically reduce the number of drone flights over people’s homes.

“Today's settlement agreement will protect everyone's right to privacy in and around their homes,” said Nick Hidalgo, a senior attorney with the ACLU of Northern California. “For too long, the county concealed these unlawful searches from the people they spied on, the community, and the media.”

CE officers had been using low-flying drones to monitor and record people’s homes, fenced-in yards, swimming pools and hot tubs, mostly without their knowledge. They used the footage as evidence to target people for a wide array of code violations that have resulted in millions of dollars in excessive fines.

In June of 2025, the ACLU Foundation of Northern California and our partner O'Melveny & Myers LLP, filed a lawsuit against Sonoma County, Sonoma Code Enforcement’s parent agency Permit Sonoma, and key officials who operated the program – on behalf of three longtime Sonoma County residents. The suit alleged that a drone initiative launched six years earlier to target unpermitted cannabis grows in hard-to-access rural areas had gotten out of control, trampling residents' right to privacy in their homes.

As a result of the settlement, Permit Sonoma must now notify residents if their home has been surveilled with a drone.

The county also agreed to stop stockpiling images of people's homes. Drone footage will now be deleted 30 days after images are collected, unless it is part of an investigation, in which case it will be deleted 30 days after the investigation closes. The county also agreed not to share images of a home or its surrounding areas with third parties unless required to do so by law.

In addition, the county must put several transparency measures in place to make sure residents understand how the government uses drones. That includes presenting a revised drone use policy to the Board of Supervisors for public comment and producing drone flight logs to the ACLU for two years.

Plaintiff Nichola Schmitz, who is Deaf, learned in 2023 that a county drone had hovered over her rural farm home without a warrant. Unable to hear the drone, she only discovered it when someone else on her property pointed it out — and later worried the drone had captured her while she was undressed. The county went on to fine her thousands of dollars over alleged code violations and put a lien on her property, based in part on evidence gathered during the unwarranted flight.

"No one should have to be afraid to open their blinds or step into their own backyard because a government drone might be watching,” Schmitz said.

Forty years ago, the California Supreme Court prohibited the government from conducting aerial surveillance of people's homes and the surrounding areas without a warrant.

Today's settlement reaffirms that constitutional protection, which is more critical now than ever before as high- powered drones make it so much easier for government agencies to pry into people’s lives.

Read the Settlement Agreements here:

Schmitz v Permit Sonoma

Verdusco v Permit Sonoma

Brock v Permit Sonoma