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The American Civil Liberties Union has published a paper titled “Eye within the Sky Policing Needs Strict Limits.” The piece was written by Jay Stanley: within the paper, Stanley explores the potential pitfalls in Drone as First Responder (DFR) programs, and the way those concerns could also be met.
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Matt Sloane, CEO and Founding father of Skyfire Consulting, reached out to Mr. Stanley to debate the ACLU concerns first hand. DRONELIFE is honored to publish this exclusive guest post outlining their discussion and proposing real solutions to addressing community concerns.
Privacy and Drone First Responder Programs
This week, the American Civil Liberties Union, and specifically Jay Stanley, certainly one of its senior policy analysts, released a report on Drone First Responder (DFR) programs in American law enforcement agencies.
Considered one of the primary sources quoted in that article was yours truly, so it’s essential that I state up front and unequivocally that Skyfire advises every certainly one of it’s clients on the importance of privacy and transparency because it develops UAS programs; and as time goes on, drone first responder programs.
It is because of this that I reached out to Mr. Stanley, and asked if he was willing to have interaction in a broad sweeping discussion with me concerning the ACLU’s views on privacy and the usage of drones in law enforcement agencies.
I discovered our conversation to be incredibly insightful, and I felt that after hanging up, I used to be higher prepared to surface these concerns with our current and future customers.
Normally, Stanley on behalf of the organization was generally more positive about police drone use than I expected; and in truth, he was quite forthcoming about certain situations where drones were a no brainer: true emergencies like fires, auto accidents and gun violence.
Where he’s less enthused about police drone use are things like domestic disputes, suspicious activity calls, wellness checks and random calls for service.
His concern was certainly one of “mission creep,” where police drones are crisscrossing a city to envision on these less urgent calls for service; and ultimately could lead on to widespread surveillance; or on the very least, a perception of such.
For my part, this can be a double-edged sword. As police departments face unprecedented staff shortages, it’s true that many agencies are taking a look at drones to assist “fill the gap” and reply to less serious concerns; and in truth, that is one of the often cited statistics amongst existing DFR programs: what number of calls were cleared without the necessity to send officers.
Nevertheless it is comprehensible that residents, particularly in low income and underserved communities may not want random overhead patrols; or a minimum of what look like random patrols.
So how does an agency square these two sides of the difficulty? Stanley suggests that agencies don’t undertake Drone First Responder programs without first going to their city or town councils.
Stanley also discusses at length the priority that while flying to 911 calls, drones may capture video en route; and asks whether that overflight video could possibly be used to search out other crimes that will not have been seen if not for that flight.
That is potentially a harder issue to resolve. While it might be tempting to make a blanket statement that no video can be collected or recorded on the strategy to a 911 call, that video generally is a useful gizmo in navigating drones being flown beyond visual line of sight.
As well as, as drones and software get more sophisticated, one has to ask if we must be making the most of sensors always flying through the air to gather things like air quality data, LiDAR sensor data of the world around us and other potential inputs – very similar to our vehicles do with the entire distancing and ranging sensors we’ve all come to depend on.
It is alleged that Tesla shouldn’t be a automobile company, but in truth, an information collection company that happens to make cars. Could these drones develop into the identical? Should they?
One other issue Stanley writes about within the white paper is the concept drones could also be a deescalation tool, avoiding potentially armed conflicts between police and potential suspects by utilizing unarmed robots.
Briefly, he believes it’s too soon to make those claims.
Finally, he addresses transparency. Along with clearing police drone policies and procedures with city council, Stanley recommends being completely transparent when implementing drone first responder programs; making public information comparable to drone capabilities, drone policies, performance and results, and certain video of public interest.
We agree that agencies should publish as much information as they’ll – without endangering officer safety or infringing on residents’ privacy further – to permit their residents to be fully aware of what drones are and are usually not getting used for.
This may occasionally include data about response times, arrests made in consequence of drones being on scene, anonymized flight paths, and general details about kinds of calls responded to.
The vast majority of the 10-15 DFR programs in operation today have made significant efforts towards releasing all of the info they possibly can to their public – including drone video where appropriate – and we are going to proceed to council agencies considering DFR programs to achieve this.
All in all, Stanley believes those 10-15 agencies operating DFR programs today are doing their best to take care of high standards, and persist with strict policies that limit the infringement of civil liberties to situations where it is totally critical; but he makes no secret concerning the organizations concerns that the handfuls – or tons of – of police programs to come back may not adhere to the identical standards.
I really appreciate the time I got to spend with Stanley over the phone, and in ongoing conversations about this issue, and consider it’s critical that we as a collective public safety drone industry consider privacy and transparency as we move forward at breakneck speed.
is the CEO and founding father of Skyfire Consulting and its parent company, Atlanta Drone Group. Before he founded Atlanta Drone Group in 2014, Matt spent 14 years in various roles at CNN in Atlanta, including 12 years as a medical news producer and special projects manager for Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta. Along with his work there, he worked as a licensed Emergency Medical Technician for Emory EMS, working his way as much as Chief of Resources and Planning for the department. Matt is an inaugural member of the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) technical committee on drones, a technical advisor to the International Association of Fire Chiefs technology council, and an FAA-certified pilot.