Hamilton police tweeted how it was using drones to monitor protesters during Trudeau’s visit to the city in late January.

Most flights in 2022 and January 2023 lasted a few minutes or a few hours, but one flight went on for almost nine hours.

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The Canadian government adopted rules in 2019 that say drones must stay within a person’s eyesight, unless they get an exemption. The rules have faced some pushback from drone users and police.

She and all the privacy interests interviewed said drones may have a chilling effect on protests and people standing up to the police service because they may feel they’re being watched.

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“Saying nothing about it leaves it open,” Schneider said, pointing to how Hamilton police tested a controversial facial recognition software in 2020.

For example, records related to a crash could be kept for over five years. Any records unnecessary for investigations or training will be deleted, according to the PIA.

The flight logs also showed the HPS used drones more in January 2023 than in any other month over the previous year, with eight deployments. Seven of those were categorized as “other.”

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A car crash in rural Hamilton. A search for a missing elderly woman. The 2021 CFL Grey Cup. A protest during a visit from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

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Rick Smith, Axon’s chief executive officer and founder, said at the time that using “remotely operated non-lethal drones capable of incapacitating an active shooter in less than 60 seconds” would be “a more effective, immediate, humane and ethical option to protect innocent people.”

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Hamilton police began using drones in 2021, but the HPS has released little information about their use or the guidelines for operating them.

“This ‘other’ category raises some concerns. It could just be anything,” said Natasha Tusikov, a former analyst with Criminal Intelligence Service Canada and researcher with the RCMP. “I’d like to see some greater specificity.”

Police across Canada are increasingly using drones. In Hamilton, there are privacy ‘red flags,’ and new documents reveal when, how and why this aerial technology is used

They also show the HPS didn’t follow part of its own PIA for two years, by not adding a webpage to its site about the drone program. It did so recently, after receiving questions from CBC Hamilton about its absence.

“It all sounds very orderly, and considerate and thought through, but there are red flags,” said Brenda McPhail, CCLA’s director of the privacy, technology and surveillance program.

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Last summer, Axon Enterprise, a U.S.-based company formerly known as Taser International, announced it had started developing a drone armed with a Taser as part of a plan to stop mass shootings.

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Of those, 20 drone deployments were listed as collision reconstruction, six were filed under search and rescue, and 17 were filed under “other,” defined as anything besides collision reconstruction, and search and rescue.

The technology is increasingly being employed by police services across Canada, including in Charlottetown, Fredericton, Toronto, Ottawa, Vancouver and Winnipeg.

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Schneider said another detail that isn’t mentioned in the PIA is if there’s a possibility for the drones to be armed with weapons.

McPhail said the HPS should have conducted a public consultation before it started using drones, particularly with marginalized communities.

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In a March 15 email, Const. Indy Bharaj, media relations officer with the HPS, wrote drones enhance public safety, adding that police and fire services around the world use the technology.

While vastly different events and incidents, they have one thing in common: A drone operated by the Hamilton Police Service (HPS) was buzzing around in the sky above and watching.

“Something should have been stated in here that these drones, under no circumstances whatsoever, will be used for the purposes of arming them and deploying them as weaponry.”

In 2020, the HPS’s police chief at the time, Eric Girt, told the police services board that the service should get drones to enhance officers’ response to “large-scale events” such as McMaster’s Fake Homecoming, protests and demonstrations at city hall, and Supercrawl, the annual downtown music and arts street festival.

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Karen Louise Smith, an assistant professor at Brock University in St. Catharines who researches privacy, also said that in the case of a protest near a neighbourhood, she wonders how police could effectively use drones without encroaching on the privacy of bystanders and peering “into their homes.”

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“Yes, there is the argument that we need some kind of effective law enforcement operation. What we also need in a democracy is accountability.”

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Privacy researchers interviewed by CBC Hamilton say the PIA doesn’t address using controversial technology like facial recognition to analyze drone images or arming the drones — which at least one U.S. tech firm has recently explored — and that gap leaves room to explore those possibilities.

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The company immediately faced backlash, and three days after announcing its plans, Axon said it was “pausing” the project.

The training, along with the PIA, also says all flight information and other details about drone use would be available on the HPS’s website. An HPS webpage on drones appeared in late March, after questions from CBC, with basic information about the drone program, but there was nothing about specific flights.

When identifying people, Bharaj said, the HPS uses techniques similar to any other digital imagery, like security camera footage.

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Schneider said police in the U.S. used drones to surveil protests after the high-profile murder of George Floyd, who was killed in May 2020 by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin.

Christopher Schneider, a sociology professor at Manitoba’s Brandon University whose research examines policing and technology, said introducing drones is a sign of the militarization of policing.

The training that drone operators receive about privacy is one page long, and says police will remove and try to avoid capturing personal information unrelated to the flight’s objective.

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The Canadian Civil Liberties Association and three privacy experts reviewed the HPS drone PIA. They praised police for doing the assessment, but also said it has gaps.

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“It’s pretty short,” Tusikov, an assistant professor in York University’s criminology department, said of the privacy portion of the training.

In early 2022, Const. Krista-Lee Ernst, an HPS media relations officer, said in an email that when the police service used drones at the Grey Cup and the NHL Heritage Classic at Tim Hortons Field in March, it was to have a “bird’s-eye view” of the stadium for when officers have to control traffic at the start and end of the games. Drones were not used to identify people, she added.

“It is the police who get to decide when and how a protest turns into a riot and allows the police to respond in ways they see fit,” Schneider said, adding he believes the PIA doesn’t say enough about charter rights.

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Flight logs obtained by CBC Hamilton show the HPS deployed drones 43 times from January 2022 to the end of January 2023.

The drone program also uses software to “stitch” images together to create 3D renderings of scenes, similar to Google Street View.

The police service has alerted the public via Twitter about deploying drones at least 17 times since Dec. 12, 2021, according to CBC Hamilton’s tracking of the tweets, despite using drones 43 times in one year.

Through a Freedom of Information request, CBC Hamilton obtained the HPS’s privacy impact assessment (PIA) on drones. The document is needed to show how the technology may impact people’s privacy and ensure the service is in compliance with privacy laws.

Bharaj said the PIA provides exemptions for when the HPS doesn’t need to notify the public. They include “emergent situations” or when notifying people would jeopardize the investigation.

While the flight logs don’t specify locations or the objective of missions categorized as “other,” police tweets indicate drones were used in a range of events, including: