With their birds-eye view, drones can observe individuals in previously private and constitutionally protected spaces, like their backyards, roofs, and even through home windows. And they can capture crowds of people, like protestors and other peaceful gatherers exercising their First Amendment rights. Drones can be equipped with cameras, thermal imaging, microphones, license plate readers, face recognition, mapping technology, cell-site simulators, weapons, and other payloads. Proliferation of these devices enables state surveillance even for routine operations and in response to innocuous calls —situations unrelated to the original concerns of terrorism or violent crime originally used to justify their adoption.

This post was written by Gowri Nayar, an EFF legal intern. Imagine driving to get your nails done with your family and all of a sudden, you are pulled over by police officers for allegedly driving a stolen car. You are dragged out of the car and detained at gun...

Police DFR programs involve a fleet of drones, which can range in number from four or five to hundreds. In response to 911 calls and other law enforcement calls for service, a camera-equipped drone is launched from a regular base (like the police station roof) to get to the incident first, giving responding officers a view of the scene before they arrive. In theory and in marketing materials, the advance view from the drone will help officers understand the situation more thoroughly before they get there, better preparing them for the scene and assisting them in things such as locating wanted or missing individuals more quickly. Police call this “situational awareness.”

Disadvantages ofdronesinlaw enforcement

Drones are also increasingly tied into other forms of surveillance. More departments — including those in Las Vegas, Louisville, and New York City — are toying with the idea of dispatching drones in response to ShotSpotter gunshot detection alerts, which are known to send many false positive alerts. This could lead to drone surveillance of communities that happen to have a higher concentration of ShotSpotter microphones or other acoustic gunshot detection technology. Data revealed recently shows that a disproportionate number of these gunshot detection sensors  are located in Black communities in the United States. Also, artificial intelligence is also being added to drone data collection; connecting what's gathered from the sky to what has been gathered on the street and through other methods is a trending part of the police panopticon plan.

How to spot a police drone at night

Chula Vista's "Drone-Related Activity Dashboard" indicates that more than 20 percent of drone flights are welfare checks or mental health crises, while only roughly 6% are responding to assault calls. Chula Vista Police claim that the DFR program lets them avoid potentially dangerous or deadly interactions with members of the public, with drone responses resulting in their department avoiding sending a patrol unit in response to 4,303 calls. However, this theory and the supporting data needs to be meaningfully evaluated by independent researchers.

In addition to reducing law enforcement violence rates, the use of cameras positively affects other indicators of performance. It increases the transparency and understanding of police activities for the public, which, according to Kim et al. (2020), leads to improved “job performance and community relations” (p. 292). Moreover, building relationships with citizens enhances the reputation and level of public trust in law enforcement agencies. In addition, the presence of control contributes to improving the quality of work performed. Laming (2019) says that the use of technology has increased the motivation and interest of police officers in their work by guaranteeing the safety of employees. Consequently, the use of body-worn cameras has a positive effect on working performance and contributes to an increase in crime detection.

Theuseofdronesin police operations case study

Another benefit is the ability to use recordings from BWCs as evidence in court. Such evidence can significantly speed up the trial as they are irrefutable factors supporting the case (Laming, 2019). The secure access to camera recordings minimizes the possibility of editing materials, which makes them reliable evidence. In addition, the use of this evidence does not require permission from the people present, which makes the materials more accessible.

California law enforcement should take note: the state’s Attorney General has issued a new bulletin advising them on how to comply with AB 481—a state law that regulates how law enforcement agencies can use, purchase, and disclose information about military equipment at their disposal. This important guidance comes...

In addition, several technical challenges arise during the use of BWCs. Firstly, it is related to the camera itself, which includes video quality, dead battery, damage to the device, probability of the lens overlap, and other technical features. That imposes additional responsibilities on law enforcement officers, which consist of the need to monitor the correct operation of the equipment. Secondly, there are often issues with the “storage and retention of body camera footage” (Laming, 2019, p. 208). The biggest problem is the preservation and protection of information from cyberattacks, copying, deletion, or editing of materials. Moreover, this creates the need for additional control of corruption in law enforcement agencies.

Pros and Cons ofdronesinlaw enforcement

Thus, the use of body-worn cameras by law enforcement agencies has a positive impact on their productivity and efficiency. That improves the quality of interaction between police officers and citizens and increases the level of trust in them. Furthermore, video footage can be used as irrefutable evidence, speeding up court proceedings. However, the use of BWCs is subject to privacy concerns and related technical challenges. In addition, introducing these technologies into law enforcement agencies requires considerable financial resources, which agencies often do not have.

DemoEssays. "Advantages and Disadvantages of Police Body-Worn Cameras." February 12, 2024. https://demoessays.com/advantages-and-disadvantages-of-police-body-worn-cameras/.

In its recent report, Civil Rights Implications of Face Recognition Technology (FRT), the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights identified serious problems with the federal government’s use of face recognition technology, and in doing so recognized EFF’s expertise on this issue. The Commission focused its investigation on the Department of...

The Federal Trade Commission has entered a settlement with self-styled “weapon detection” company Evolv, to resolve the FTC’s claim that the company “knowingly” and repeatedly” engaged in “unlawful” acts of misleading claims about their technology. Essentially, Evolv’s technology, which is in schools, subways, and stadiums, does far less...

1. DemoEssays. "Advantages and Disadvantages of Police Body-Worn Cameras." February 12, 2024. https://demoessays.com/advantages-and-disadvantages-of-police-body-worn-cameras/.

DemoEssays. 2024. "Advantages and Disadvantages of Police Body-Worn Cameras." February 12, 2024. https://demoessays.com/advantages-and-disadvantages-of-police-body-worn-cameras/.

Benefits ofdronesinlaw enforcement

DFR programs are just one way police are acquiring drones, but law enforcement and UAV manufacturers are interested in adding drones in other ways, including as part of regular patrols and in response to high-speed vehicle pursuits. These uses also create the risk of law enforcement bypassing important safeguards.  Reasonable protections for public privacy, like robust use policies, are not a barrier to public safety but a crucial part of ensuring just and constitutional policing.

Clear policies around the use of drones are a valuable part of holding police departments accountable for their drone use. These policies must include rules around why a drone is deployed and guardrails on the kind of footage that is collected, the length of time it is retained, and with whom it can be shared.

While some might take for granted that the government is not allowed to conduct surveillance — intentional, incidental, or otherwise — on you in spaces like your fenced-in backyard, this is not always the case. It took a lawsuit and a recent Alaska Supreme Court decision to ensure that police in that state must obtain a warrant for drone surveillance in otherwise private areas. While some states do require a warrant to use a drone to violate the privacy of a person’s airspace, Alaska, California, Hawaii, and Vermont are currently the only states where courts have held that warrantless aerial surveillance violates residents’ constitutional protections against unreasonable search and seizure absent specific exceptions.

In practice, law enforcement's desire to get “a view of the scene” becomes a justification for over-surveilling neighborhoods that produce more 911 calls and for collecting information on anyone who happens to be in the drone’s path. For example, a drone responding to a vandalism case may capture video footage of everyone it passes along the way. Also, drones are subject to the same mission-creep issues that already plague other police tools designed to record the public; what is pitched as a solution to violent crime can quickly become a tool for policing homelessness or low-level infractions that otherwise wouldn't merit police resources.

Police usingdronesfor surveillance

DemoEssays. (2024, February 12). Advantages and Disadvantages of Police Body-Worn Cameras. https://demoessays.com/advantages-and-disadvantages-of-police-body-worn-cameras/

What do policeuse dronesfor at night

The King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office, which handles all prosecutions in the Seattle area, has instructed police in no uncertain terms: do not use AI to write police reports...for now. This is a good development. We hope prosecutors across the country will exercise such caution as companies continue to...

Another disadvantage of using body-worn cameras for police officers is their high cost. When introducing new technologies to work, some U.S. law enforcement agencies “have faced serious fiscal challenges of running body camera programs” (Laming, 2019, p. 209). Many regional police stations do not have enough funding and resources to provide BWCs for officers. Moreover, in addition to the high cost of the equipment itself, its maintenance and work with recorded video materials also require investments. Therefore, the potential costs of implementing BWCs in the creation of law enforcement agencies should be calculated in the long term.

Transparency around the acquisition and use of drones will be important to the effort to protect civilians from government and police overreach and abuse as agencies commission more of these flying machines. A recent Wired investigation raised concerns about Chula Vista’s program, finding that roughly one in 10 drone flights lacked a stated purpose, and for nearly 500 of its recent flights, the reason for deployment was an “unknown problem.” That same investigation also found that each average drone flight exposes nearly 5,000 city residents to enhanced surveillance, primarily in predominantly Black and brown neighborhoods.

"Advantages and Disadvantages of Police Body-Worn Cameras." DemoEssays, 12 Feb. 2024, demoessays.com/advantages-and-disadvantages-of-police-body-worn-cameras/.

This type of analysis is not possible without transparency around the program in Chula Vista, which, to its credit, publishes regular details like the location and reason for each of its deployments. Still, that department has also tried to prevent the public from learning about its program, rejecting California Public Records Act (CPRA) requests for drone footage. This led to a lawsuit in which EFF submitted an amicus brief, and ultimately the California Court of Appeal correctly found that drone footage is not exempt from CPRA requests.

The post was written by Laura Vidal (PhD), independent researcher in learning and digital rights.This is part two of a series. Part one on surveillance and control around the July election is here.Over the past decade, the government in Venezuela has meticulously constructed a framework of surveillance...

One of the main benefits of police wearing body cameras is to control and improve interactions between law enforcement and citizens. According to the National Institute of Justice (2022), “the use of body-worn cameras resulted in a statistically significant reduction in both complaints and use of force” (para. 15). Video recording forces police and citizens to be more restrained when interacting with each other. Moreover, video “footage can be a source of transparency for an officer’s law enforcement actions, which eventually protect his/her career” (Kim et al., 2020, p. 291). Such video evidence is one of the critical factors in understanding situations and decisions taken by police officers in stressful situations. Therefore, they can be used for internal investigations related to complaints of police incompetence or abuse of authority.

It’s clear that as the skies open up for more drone usage, law enforcement will push to procure more of these flying surveillance tools. But police and lawmakers must exercise far more skepticism over what may ultimately prove to be a flashy trend that wastes resources, infringes on people's rights, and results in unforeseen shifts in policing strategy. The public must be kept aware of how cops are coming for their privacy from above.

Companies are eager to tap this growing market. Police technology company Axon —known for its Tasers and body-worn cameras — recently acquired drone company Dedrone, specifically citing that company’s efforts to push DFR programs as one reason for the acquisition. Axon since has established a partnership with Skydio in order to expand their DFR sales.

Artificial intelligence dominated the technology talk on panels, among sponsors, and across the trade floor at this year’s annual conference of the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP).IACP, held Oct. 19 - 22 in Boston, brings together thousands of police employees with the businesses who want to sell them...

Law enforcement agencies are actively using technology to optimize their work. One such technological innovation is body-worn cameras (BWCs). BWCs have some benefits, including reducing violent police behavior toward citizens and guaranteeing additional evidence. However, body-worn cameras have shortcomings that cause concerns among the public and the law enforcement agencies themselves. Therefore, it is necessary to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of BWCs to determine how beneficial their use is for the police.

“For residents we spoke to,” Wired wrote, “the discrepancy raises serious concerns about the accuracy and reliability of the department's transparency efforts—and experts say the use of the drones is a classic case of self-perpetuating mission creep, with their existence both justifying and necessitating their use.”

While there are many benefits to using BWCs, it also causes some issues. The most significant number of concerns is the issue of confidentiality for both citizens and the police themselves. Laming (2019) states that “body cameras can capture a great deal of activity involving individuals who may be vulnerable or in vulnerable positions” (p. 207). The use of these technologies poses a threat to the safety of citizens and may cause victims and witnesses to refuse to testify to the police. Moreover, most cameras record throughout the entire period of work, which violates the officers’ privacy. Some BWCs give police officers the ability to turn the device off and on when needed. However, according to Laming (2019), in this case, there is a possibility that the officer may forget to turn on the camera. That will make it impossible to obtain the necessary evidence from the scene if necessary.

Kim, D.-Y., Phillips, S. W., & Gramaglia, J. A. (2021). The relationship between general policing attitudes and how officers perceive the potential advantages of body cameras. Journal of Crime and Justice, 44(3), 275-296. Web.

Can policeuse droneswithout a warrant

The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into our criminal justice system is one of the most worrying developments across policing and the courts, and EFF has been tracking it for years. EFF recently contributed a chapter on AI’s use by law enforcement to the American Bar Association’s annual publication, ...

Law enforcement wants more drones, and we’ll probably see many more of them overhead as police departments seek to implement a popular project justifying the deployment of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs): the “drone as first responder” (DFR).

DFR programs have been growing in popularity since first launched by the Chula Vista Police Department in 2018. Now there are a few dozen departments with known DFR programs among the approximately 1,500 police departments known to have any drone program at all, according to EFF’s Atlas of Surveillance, the most comprehensive dataset of this kind of information. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regulates use of drones and is currently mandated to prepare new regulations for how they can be operated beyond the operator’s line of sight (BVLOS), the kind of long-distance flight that currently requires a special waiver. All the while, police departments and the companies that sell drones are eager to move forward with more DFR initiatives.