Every day that technology advances, privacy becomes more of a luxury than a right. Cell phone tracking, facial recognition, data aggregation, DNA collection—the government’s encirclement of our private lives and information is quite nearly complete.
Local and state governments around the country have already set in motion ambitious plans this year to provide surveillance drones to law enforcement. In Baltimore, the once-secret aerial surveillance program has resumed with the support of the Baltimore police department and the Greater Baltimore Committee. Baltimore isn’t alone; in 2020, defense contractor General Atomics Aeronautical Systems will begin flying Predator drones over San Diego with the goal of “broader support for first responders contending with natural disasters such as floods and forest fires.” Kicking off New Years, the New York Police Department deployed aerial surveillance drones to make Times Square the “safest place on the planet Earth.”
As more domestic drones take to the sky, questions surface over the extent to which we are willing to allow privacy to be curtailed in exchange for safety—as does the need for government step in and establish guardrails and maintain the balance between safety and privacy.
Drone use is increasing dramatically. Bard College’s Center for the Study of the Drone tallied 910 state and local police, sheriff, fire, and emergency departments across the country that possessed drone technology as of April 2017. The sheer number of agencies utilizing drone technology has increased exponentially since 2013; the number of agencies increased 82% in 2017 alone.
Drone technology is also becoming more sophisticated. Google (codename SkyBender) has been developing drones that can deliver 5G Internet from the sky. The longevity of battery life has also been a focal point of drone manufacturers, allowing recent consumer models and military-grade drones to stay in the air for days and weeks at a time. Some drones can follow individuals for days at a time in order to generate a “pattern of life analysis”—an analysis tool that aggregates multiple data streams on an individual and integrates them to form patterns of behavior for individuals. Drones will only become more intrusive.
Beyond individual liberty, there are also a number of national security concerns. NPR reported in January that the U.S. Interior Department grounded its drones made by Chinese manufacturer DJI due to espionage risks. This same manufacturer produces a significant number of consumer drones, many of which are used by law enforcement. Coupled with the increased use, the lack of oversight regarding hardware acquisition makes the need for guardrails for drone use by law enforcement that much more important.
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