Kentucky Drone Laws: KRS 500.130 Privacy Rules & Warrants

Kentucky requires a warrant before police fly a drone over private property, and since June 2025 also bars private operators from using a drone to surveil or publish images of someone's home without consent, under KRS 500.130(12) and a new civil damages statute, KRS 411.067.

This guide is part of our Drone Laws by State series; for the broader rules on recording people and property in Kentucky, see our surveillance camera laws guide.

Jurisdiction scope: This article addresses Kentucky law governing private and law-enforcement drone use under KRS 500.130, KRS 411.067, and 301 KAR 3:140. It does not address FAA registration, Remote ID, or Part 107 pilot certification, which apply the same way nationwide regardless of state law.

How federal and Kentucky law divide drone authority

The FAA regulates where a drone may fly. Under 49 U.S.C. section 40102, it treats any unmanned aircraft as an "aircraft," pulling it into the national airspace system regardless of size. A commercial or government flight generally needs a Remote Pilot Certificate under 14 C.F.R. Part 107; a hobbyist flight falls under the separate exception at 49 U.S.C. section 44809. Most registrable drones must also broadcast Remote ID since 2023.

None of that answers what a Kentucky drone operator may record, or when Kentucky police need a warrant. Those are state privacy, trespass, and criminal-procedure questions layered on top of the federal operating rules, and Kentucky is one of the more legislatively active states on this front after its 2025 privacy statute.

Can a private citizen legally fly a drone over my property in Kentucky?

Generally, yes; Kentucky has no statute barring a drone from merely passing through the airspace above private land. What it regulates is what the operator does with the flight. KRS 500.130(12) prohibits a person operating under the statute's business, recreational, or educational provisions from recording an image of privately owned real property, or of its owner, tenant, occupant, invitee, or licensee, with intent to conduct surveillance or publish an unauthorized image, where doing so violates a reasonable expectation of privacy.

The statute sets a specific test for that expectation: a person is presumed to have it on their own property if they cannot be seen by someone standing at ground level in a place that person has a legal right to be, regardless of whether a drone camera overhead could see them. A fence or hedge that blocks a neighbor's ground-level view can still support a privacy claim even though it does nothing to block an aerial camera.

Anyone surveilled or photographed in violation of subsection (12) can sue the operator, and any agency or political subdivision that violates it, under KRS 411.067, for injunctive relief, actual and punitive damages, court costs, and attorney's fees, within seven years of accrual. Business, insurance, utility, mapping, agricultural, and educational drone use stays lawful under KRS 500.130(3) through (5) as long as it does not cross into the surveillance-with-intent conduct barred by subsection (12).

Does police need a warrant to fly a drone over my property in Kentucky?

Yes, in the core case. KRS 500.130(6) bars a law enforcement agency, or its agent, from using a drone to conduct a search unless authorized under the Fourth Amendment or Section 10 of the Kentucky Constitution, and any warrant relied on must specifically authorize drone use, not merely a physical search.

That rule has two limits. It only applies to a "search"; subsection (7) separately lets any government agency fly a drone for a legitimate governmental purpose outside a search, such as a crash scene or missing-person search. And when police rely on (6) or (7), subsection (8) requires minimizing data collection on non-suspects and bars disclosing it except by court order.

Evidence gathered outside these rules faces an exclusionary consequence: KRS 500.130(9) makes drone-derived evidence inadmissible in a Kentucky civil, criminal, or administrative proceeding unless collected under subsections (3) through (7), or offered against the drone's own owner to show misconduct. No agency is required to operate a drone at all, under subsection (10).

Kentucky's ban on drones for hunting and harassing wildlife

Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources regulation 301 KAR 3:140, effective October 16, 2025, makes it unlawful to use aircraft or a drone to fish, hunt, or take wildlife, to drive or herd wildlife for those purposes, or to harass wildlife. It draws its authority from the broad definition of "take" in KRS 150.010(46), covering pursuing, shooting, wounding, or capturing wildlife.

The rule exempts department employees acting for safety, law enforcement, research, or management purposes, authorized landowners handling wildlife damage, and commercial fishers removing invasive carp. A hunter who uses a drone to scout or drive game outside those exceptions risks a citation independent of any privacy or trespass claim.

Can I shoot down a drone over my Kentucky property?

No. Federal law makes it a serious crime to damage, destroy, or disable any drone, including one hovering low over the shooter's own yard. 18 U.S.C. section 32, the Aircraft Sabotage Act, criminalizes willfully damaging an "aircraft," a category the FAA has applied to drones since 2012. A conviction carries up to 20 years in federal prison, a fine up to $250,000, and the permanent loss of Second Amendment rights that follows any federal felony. The FAA's position is that it, not the property owner, controls the airspace, so owning the ground below does not create a right to fire on what is above it.

Kentucky is the origin of the country's most widely known shoot-down story, but it is often misunderstood. In July 2015, William Merideth of Hillview shot down a drone he believed was filming his daughter; a local judge dismissed the state criminal-mischief and wanton-endangerment charges against him, reportedly calling it an invasion of privacy. That was one judge's charging decision, not a binding ruling that shooting down a drone is legal. The drone's owner, David Boggs, then sued Merideth in federal court seeking a declaration that the drone had been in protected federal airspace. The Western District of Kentucky dismissed that suit, Boggs v. Merideth, in March 2017 for lack of federal subject-matter jurisdiction, holding the claim was really a state-law property dispute. The court never reached whether flying a drone over someone's land is a federal airspace matter or a state trespass. No statute, state or federal, gives a landowner a right to shoot down a drone.

Watch out: Kentucky's warrant rule in KRS 500.130(6) only applies when police are conducting a "search." A department can still fly a drone over a public event, a search-and-rescue scene, or a traffic crash under the separate legitimate-governmental-purpose allowance in subsection (7), without a warrant.