For the first time, D.C. is using police drones to support ground-based officers.
Why it matters: Drones are used in many places for surveillance and search operations, but privacy issues have also been raised by the technology.
Driving the news: Five automated drones with a 30-minute flying time before requiring a recharge were introduced as part of the Metropolitan Police Department’s drone program on Monday.
Drones are intended to assist in crowd control, major traffic crash response, missing person searches, and tactical situations like police barricades.
How it functions If three requirements are satisfied—that is, the suspect must be thought to be armed and the situation puts officers in danger of death or serious injury—a drone may be used to assist in the suspect’s location.
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Serving high-risk warrants and handling explosive material disposal are two further instances of usage.
The agency states that “the use of facial recognition and weapon capabilities is prohibited.”
Furthermore, it is not possible to use drones to record a specific individual or group based only on their identity.
Zoom out: As to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital privacy advocacy group, around 1,200 police agencies in the United States, including those in Beverly Hills, California, and Washington state, use drones in some capacity.
The longest-running drone-as-first responder program in the country is located in Chula Vista, California, and is frequently used as an example of the advantages of drone police.
According to statistics made public by the police, the majority of calls that drones handled in 2022 involved disturbances, psychological assessments, and welfare checks. This allowed officers to attend to more urgent calls.
Yes, but there can be controversy surrounding drones. A 2021 court decision determined that a Baltimore aerial surveillance system, which recorded citizens’ activities throughout the day in an attempt to lower killings, violated their right to privacy since it was an illegal invasion.