Since it was founded in 2010, Drone Wars has challenged the secrecy surrounding drone warfare and the use of emerging military technology. We’ve submitted hundred of Freedom of Information (FoI) requests, taken the Ministry of Defence (MoD) to court over their refusal to answer basic questions, interviewed senior military officers and officials both on and off-the record, and worked with MPs and Peers to ask awkward questions. And over the years, we have had some success in enabling greater transparency about the UK’s use of drones.
However, the MoD is now pushing back hard, refusing to disclose information that it previously regularly shared and seemingly automatically refusing FoI requests. They argue that following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine the geopolitical situation has changed and that the UK is now in “a pre-war situation”. At a recent Information Tribunal, where we were seeking to overturn the MoD’s decision to stop releasing statistical information to us that it had been doing for more than a decade, it was revealed that the MoD had confirmed to the Information Commissioner that no harm had ever occurred from any information disclosed to Drone Wars.
Some of our revelations
Other organisions working on UK military and security issues affirm that they too have seen a significant decrease in MoD/Foreign Office transparency, particularly around nuclear issues, deployment of UK forces and military technology development programmes. A number of organisations reported the difficulty of even getting a basic response from MoD and other departments to FoI requests. This however, is wider than compliance with the FoI Act.
There has a significant ‘land grab’ by the MoD who have used the Russian invasion of Ukraine to decrease public transparency over UK military and security issues. Drones, for example, have been put in the same political space as UK Special Forces, with ministers telling MPs asking questions that they are ‘intelligence assets’ and the government does not comment on intelligence matters. At the recent Information Tribunal, in response to a question from the judge about whether the MoD accepted there should be public oversight of its work, the MoD witness affirmed there should be, but that “it should be behind closed doors” with selected MPs like in the US. That would be an even more serious backward step.
The Need for Transparency
Enabling proper and appropriate public scrutiny of government actions – including military operations – is a vital part of democracy and indeed a fundamental reason for the existence of the Freedom of Information Act. Proper and appropriate transparency enables Parliament to scrutinise government action as well as allowing the public to understand the action government takes in their name. As such, transparency contributes to good governance as well as public legitimacy and confidence in the government. It wasn’t very long ago that the Chilcot inquiry made this very point. Without proper outside scrutiny of decisions, it’s all too easy for a small group of people ‘in the know’ to fall into group think and make serious mistakes.
Drone Wars strongly challenges the MoD’s assertion that there should be less public and parliamentary oversight over UK military technology development programmes and military/security operations, particularly at a time when we are seeing a huge expansion of spending on such programmes.
Some Key Questions
Where are British armed drones operating?
Since 2014 British Reaper drones have been deployed on operations against ISIS in Iraq and Syria. There are strong indications that some have been deployed on secret operations elsewhere but the UK government is refusing to give any details.
Drone Wars argues that due to their unique capabilities, particularly how they enable targeted killing operations and appear to be lowering the threshold for the use of force, all deployments of the UK’s armed drones should be subject to parliamentary approval.
What controls are there on the UK’s drone targeted killing programme?
In August 2015, a British drone targeted and killed 21-year old Cardiff-born ISIS militant Reyaad Khan in a ‘pre-emptive strike’ in Syria. Since then a number of strikes that have the hallmarks of targeted killings have been carried out by British drones, the most recent in June 2025.
Since the first killing, the government have argued that it cannot release any details about the process by which individuals are added to the ‘kill list’ nor detail what legal and other safeguards are in place.
Will there be real and meaningful human control over the UK’s new AI drones?
Along with the US, the UK is developing a new generation of autonomous drones. These are currently called ‘Autonomous Collaborative Platforms’ by the UK and ‘Collaborative Combat Aircraft’ by the US.
Drone Wars argues, along with other members of the Stop Killer Robots coalition, that legally and ethically there needs to be real and meaningful human control over the deployment of autonomous weapons.