Drones: The “Cute” face of Surveillance?

COVID-19 has seen resources mobilized at both a national and international level; from funding medical research to significant emergency restrictions. Technological solutions however, have proved themselves to be essential to combatting and flattening the curve of infections.

Drones, as well as other forms of artificial intelligence, have all been implemented to enforce restriction measures and generate data to anticipate further outbreaks.

Naturally, this has led to a sense of optimism amongst the public in relation to drone use. They relieve a certain level of stress from emergency services by collecting imagery, delivering food and medicine to the vulnerable, monitor situations and can even disinfect large urban areas – but most importantly, they can do all of these tasks without a generating a further risk of spreading the virus. They hold “a special appeal in the age of social distancing and viral spread by providingremote, act-at-a distance services.”
 

An Italian police officer using a drones as a method of surveillance in Turin, Italy, 2020.


In this wave of confidence in drone service however, should there not be a space for scrutiny?
 

Drones, no matter their function (be it commercial, State or private) have always raised issues of privacy and data protections. They not only provide real time surveillance but also generate huge amounts of new data that needs to be managed in line with specific legal requirements – and it is questionable how far these requirements have been infringed during the pandemic.
 
Although a certain level of leeway can be granted during times of crisis, we should also keep an eye to the future as to how far they will remain in the public space. The issue here, is not how effective they are during the pandemic, but rather this new projection of the image that drones are a necessity for public safety and therefore legitimising their use within and beyond domestic borders.
 
Positive headlines of drones prevents a greater awareness of the violence and ongoing use of drones abroad and the loss of privacy which comes with their use. The uses, and successes, of drones are being used as a quieting effect and opens up a greater level of acceptance to occur within public spaces. 

Using military technology for citizen surveillance however blurs the line between civilian and war-zones and we are now seeing the line between protecting the public and policing the public getting fuzzier – are drones to be considered protectors or predators?
 
A report on police drones even went as far as to suggest that “the drone looked sleek – cute, even. The Sheriff’s department made the choice deliberately, to give the potentially threatening technology a Pixar-like approachability.” In the wake of a summer of protests and movements in support of Black Lives Matter as a direct response of police brutality however, a level of wariness should come to describing police surveillance technology as “cute”.

The continued use of drones in the public sphere has no doubt had its successes and taken the strain for emergency services when they needed it most, but it is also necessary to remain cuation of how public opinion is being shaped and the dsitraction this can case from the increasingly normalised drone warfare. 

This technology allows for governments to wage war without public knowledge, removing scrutiny and accountability. It "erodes democracy at home as it erodes communities oversees," and this new sanitised image of drones being used for the public benefit only strengthens the smokescreen between the public and the destructive path drone warfare can lead. 

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