Drones Soon to Patrol Denver

​The City of Denver is reversing its previous stance against the use of police drones. The city is now buying drones to explore the effectiveness of replacing many police calls with remote aerial responses. A Denver police spokesman said that on many calls the police department will send drones first, officers second. When operators of drones see that a call was a false alarm, or that a traffic issue has been resolved, the police department will be free to devote scarce resources to more urgent priorities.
 
Nearby Arapahoe County already has a fleet of 20 such drones operated by 14 pilots. Arapahoe has successfully used drones to follow suspects fleeing a crime, provide live-streamed video and mapping of a tense situation before law enforcement arrives, and to look for missing people. In Loveland, Colorado, a drone was used to deliver a defibrillator to a patient before paramedics were able to get to the scene.
 
The use of drones by local law enforcement as supplements to patrol officers is likely to grow. And why not? It makes sense for a drone to scout out a traffic accident or a crime scene for police. But as law enforcement builds more robust fleets of drones, they could be used not just to assess the seriousness of a 911 call, but to provide the basis for around-the-clock surveillance.
 
Modern drones can deliver intimate surveillance that is more invasive than traditional searches. They can be packed with cell-simulator devices to extract location and other data from cellphones in a given area. They can loiter over a home or peek in someone’s window. They can see in the dark. They can track people and their activities through walls by their heat signatures. Two or more cameras combined can work in stereo to create 3D maps inside homes. Sensor fusion between high definition, fully maneuverable cameras can put all these together to essentially give police an inside look at a target’s life.
 
Drones with such high-tech surveillance packages can be had on the market for around $6,000. As with so many other forms of surveillance, the modest use of this technology sounds sensible, until one considers how many other ways they can be used. Local leaders at the very least need to enact policies that put guardrails on these practices before we learn, the hard way, how drones and the data they generate can be misused.