Legal
Compliance
Last updated: 25 September 2026
Who we are on paper, and every permission, policy and certificate this system is required to hold. As each one is issued it is published here, in full, for anyone to read.
⚠ Draft pending completion. The registered office address is still a placeholder, and each document below is marked Not yet published — which describes this page, not the company. Both need real detail, and this page needs a check by a qualified adviser, before the site is treated as launched.
Company information
- Registered name
- Hornet Drones Limited
- Company number
- 17463533
- Place of registration
- England and Wales
- Registered office
- [REGISTERED OFFICE ADDRESS]
- Trading name
- Hornet Drones
- General enquiries
- [email protected]
- Data protection enquiries
- [email protected]
The company's own filing history, including confirmation statements and accounts, is public and can be read at Companies House. Where this page and that register disagree, the register is correct and we have made a mistake — please tell us.
Documents and certificates
Everything in this table is either legally required before the service can operate, or held because a customer or insurer will reasonably ask for it. The status column says whether the document is published on this page yet, not whether it exists.
| Document | What it covers | Status |
|---|---|---|
| CAA Operator ID | Identifies the organisation responsible for the aircraft. Required to operate a drone of 250 g or more in the UK. | Not yet published |
| CAA Flyer ID | Held by each person who flies, after passing the CAA's theory test. | Not yet published |
| Operational Authorisation | CAA permission for flight outside the Open category, which is where any beyond-visual-line-of-sight operation sits. | Not yet published |
| Third-party liability insurance | Compulsory for non-recreational flight under Regulation (EC) 785/2004 as retained in UK law. | Not yet published |
| ICO registration | The annual data protection fee payable by a controller that is not exempt. | Not yet published |
| Data protection impact assessment | Written assessment of the risks in camera-equipped flight over a domestic boundary, and what reduces them. | Not yet published |
| Declaration of conformity | Product conformity for the aircraft and the charging nest as radio equipment placed on the GB market. | Not yet published |
Permission to fly
A drone does not become legal to fly because it is well built. UK drone flight is governed by the Air Navigation Order and the CAA's rules made under it, and an autonomous system that patrols a boundary sits in the harder half of those rules: it is the beyond-visual-line-of-sight case, which needs an Operational Authorisation rather than the Open category anyone can fly under.
Airspace & regulation sets out what that means in practice, including the question of who holds the authorisation — the company running the fleet or the householder whose garden it patrols. That question is not settled marketing copy and we will not pretend otherwise; it is being worked through with the CAA's published guidance and, where needed, with advisers.
Data protection
An aircraft with a camera over a residential boundary processes personal data — of the household, of visitors, and of anyone the other side of the fence. Hornet Drones Limited is the controller for the data this website collects, and the privacy notice describes that processing in full: what is collected, why, on what lawful basis, who processes it for us and how long it is kept.
Two things are required before the product itself starts processing footage, and both will be published here:
- A data protection impact assessment. UK GDPR Article 35 requires one where processing is likely to result in a high risk to people, and the Information Commissioner treats surveillance of this kind as exactly that.
- Registration with the Information Commissioner's Office, which for most controllers means paying the annual data protection fee.
Product conformity
The aircraft and the charging nest are radio equipment placed on the Great Britain market, which brings them under the Radio Equipment Regulations 2017 and requires UKCA marking supported by a declaration of conformity and a technical file. The declaration will be published here, and supplied with every system.
Voluntary standards
Some certifications are not legally required but are what a serious buyer asks for — information security certification, and the security-industry inspectorate approvals that cover installers working in people's homes. We will say plainly on this page which of these we hold and which we do not. A blank is a blank, not a hint.
Asking us for a document
If something you need is not on this page yet, ask for it at [email protected] and say what it is for. Insurers, local authorities and procurement teams get a direct answer, including when the answer is that the document does not exist yet.
Changes to this page
The date at the top moves when the content of this page changes, not when the site is rebuilt. Documents are added as they are issued and are not removed once published; a superseded version is marked as superseded rather than deleted.