Police in the UK are
planning to use
unmanned
spy drones,
controversially deployed in
Afghanistan,
for the "routine"
monitoring of
antisocial
motorists,
protesters,
agricultural thieves and
fly-tippers, in a
significant expansion of
covert state
surveillance.The arms
manufacturer
BAE Systems, which produces a range of
unmanned
aerial vehicles (UAVs) for war
zones, is
adapting
the military-style planes for a
consortium of
government
agencies led by Kent police.
Documents from the
South Coast
Partnership, a
Home
Office-backed project in which Kent police and
others are
developing a
national drone plan with BAE,
have been
obtained by the
Guardian under the Freedom
of
Information Act.
They
reveal the
partnership intends to begin
using the
drones in
time for the 2012 Olympics. They
also
indicate that
police claims that the
technology
will be used for
maritime surveillance
fall well
short of
their intended use – which
could span a
range of
police activity – and that officers have
talked about selling the
surveillance data to
private companies. A
prototype drone
equipped with
high-powered cameras and sensors is set to take to
the skies for test flights
later this year.
The
Civil Aviation Authority,
which regulates UK
airspace, has been told by BAE and Kent police that
civilian UAVs would "
greatly extend" the
government's
surveillance capacity and "revolutionise
policing". The CAA is
currently reluctant to license
UAVs in normal airspace because of the risk of
collisions with other aircraft, but adequate "
sense and avoid" systems for
drones are only a few years
away.
Five other
police forces have signed up to the
scheme, which is
considered a pilot preceding the
countrywide adoption of the
technology for
"surveillance,
monitoring and evidence gathering".
The
partnership's stated
mission is to
introduce
drones "into the
routine work of the
police, border
authorities and other government agencies" across
the UK.
Concerned about the slow pace of
progress of
licensing issues, Kent police's assistant chief
constable, Allyn Thomas,
wrote to the
CAA last March
arguing that
military drones would be
useful "in the
policing of major events, whether they be
protests
or the Olympics". He said
interest in their use in
the UK had "
developed after the
terrorist attack in
Mumbai".
Stressing that he was not seeking to
interfere
with the regulatory process, Thomas
pointed out that
there was "rather
more urgency
in the work since
Mumbai and we have a clear deadline of the 2012
Olympics".
