Building off of our presentation this past week, this article takes a broader view by looking at how police departments around the world are using drones. It is interesting to see that multiple nations are in agreement that at least some form of drone use can be beneficial to law enforcement, but obviously different nations will disagree on the boundaries of use. The article linked about discusses how police in England have started to use drones to monitor soccer games and identify troublemakers. The article also discusses how Australian police are looking to fund a large drone project that would include 100 drones and 60 new drone operators. These examples seem to show that law enforcement drone use will be something we have in the future, and the big debate will then be on the limitations lawmakers put in place.
Great article Bob, thanks for sharing. I think this global perspective is important. Although the United States and Asia typically lead the field in tech, I can see Europe adopting these technologies more rapidly where privacy concerns are less of a priority. For example, much of London has been under surveillance for the past decade, so it doesn’t surprise me that England is adopting drone surveillance in ways most Americans would not be comfortable with.
While its interesting to see how other countries are using Drone technology, I would be hesitant to model our drone policy off other countries. Like Patrick said, most Americans would probably not be comfortable if our government monitored us to the extent that Britain monitors its citizens.