The New York City police department plans to pilot the unmanned aircrafts in response to complaints about large gatherings, including private events, over Labor Day weekend, officials announced Thursday.
“If a caller states there’s a large crowd, a large party in a backyard, we’re going to be utilizing our assets to go up and go check on the party,” Kaz Daughtry, the assistant NYPD Commissioner, said at a press conference.
The plan drew immediate backlash from privacy and civil liberties advocates, raising questions about whether such drone use violated existing laws for police surveillance.
“It’s a troubling announcement and it flies in the face of the POST Act,” said Daniel Schwarz, a privacy and technology strategist at the New York Civil Liberties Union, referring to a 2020 city law that requires the NYPD to disclose its surveillance tactics. “Deploying drones in this way is a sci-fi inspired scenario.”
This all seems stupid.
If you have a party big and crazy enough to justify airborne surveillance, the police will be able to figure it out just by showing up at your door. No drones are needed.
That being said, NYC has been flying helicopters for decades, so really nothing new privacy wise other than the size of the aircraft and the fact that “drone” invokes fears that drive clicks.
Don’t forget scale. Significantly more practical to have a couple dozen drones than helicopters
They would not launch a helicopter to confirm a large scale party.
But even still, so they use a drone and they do confirm a large scale party, then what? They have to deploy the police to the house anyhow. Isn’t better to have police just out patrolling and visiting these complaints? Then at least they look like they are doing something for the community.
Drones can get closer without detection. Also there’s a limit to helicopter use since they cause noise pollution.