151drones in the City
hover, and y sideways, backward, and forward, and has a ight time
of11minutes. e Nano Hummingbird has not yet been deployed
by the police, but in the near future it could be deployed to perform
reconnaissance and surveillance in urban environments, and might
perch on windowsills or power lines, or enter buildings to observe its
surroundings, relaying camera views back to its operator.*
ese drones open up a new eld of possibilities for surveillance
purposes. In order to realize this potential, there are still some hurdles
to be overcome. e ight times of the air robots, for example, are still
limited. In addition to the restricted energy supply, wind force can
constrain their use. At a given wind force the air robot loses its stabil-
ity, which keeps it from producing usable pictures or video images.
Furthermore, programming the ight is a fragile and delicate process,
and a small programming mistake can easily cause the drone to crash.
Police drones can also be equipped with “intelligent” camera sys-
tems. Using particular video analysis software, a camera can remotely
register incidents, including burglaries and res, for example, on a
*
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/feb/17/business/la-fi-hummingbird-
drone-20110217.
Figure 4.8 The Nano Hummingbird. (Photo courtesy of AeroVironment, Inc.)
152 Just ordinAry robots
shopping street or on a construction site, and pass information on
to an emergency room. Integrating intelligent camera drones can
provide very useful police applications. By equipping a drone with
intelligent eyes, it can recognize suspect behavior in a public space
and prevent escalation. It would be of great importance if the smart
cameras could sort out certain movements that are perhaps beyond
the norm and where emotional outbursts of one individual may inu-
ence bystanders. Escalation can be avoided if the drone can make
timely and accurately predictions about group dynamics and call for
help, or perhaps take a supervisory and monitoring role in a panic-
induced situation.
4.3.4 Legal and Ethical Issues
Hambling (2010) asks other important questions in relation to tele-
operations: Will the ability to operate at a distance make the police
ocer less able to intervene when serious trouble is about to erupt?
Will the police, as a result of becoming habituated to the use of
drones, lose the skills acquired through extensive training, which
are crucial when things get tense? is is referred to as the risk
of de-skilling: the loss of essential skills as a result of habituation
to new technologies. is can also appear in using police drones
and deserves attention from those designing task innovation and
replacement. e increasing deployment of police drones requires
new skills from police ocers. First, they need to be able to operate
these drones, and second, they need to be able to perform police
actions using robotic technology; both put dierent operational
and strategic demands on police personnel. e downside is that
a loss of essential police skills—skills acquired through extensive
training and experience—may occur as a result of getting used to
the deployment of police drones, after which police ocers would
be less able to intervene in serious problems that cannot be solved
using drones.
A legal complication regarding the deploying of drones for police
purposes is that it is not yet clear how these robots can be deployed
in accordance with existing laws and regulations. For example, which
specic restrictions apply on the basis of the current legal frame-
work regarding the deployment of drones over a festival crowd, or
153drones in the City
a re in the dunes, or at night, or out of sight of the operator? e
political challenge is to adapt Aviation Acts and privacy regulations
in order to increase the use of drones for law enforcement purposes
without risking the safety in the air or on the ground and without
compromising the privacy of citizens too much. e use of drones
for law enforcement could prove to be one of the most far-reaching
and potentially controversial uses of drones as a new, relatively cheap
surveillance tool. Drones raise the prospect of much more pervasive
surveillance. Using them would allow police to record the activities of
the public below with high-resolution, infrared, and thermal-imaging
cameras. e deployment of these drones has driven debates about the
boundaries of privacy. e main problem is that drones will be used
to watch citizens.
From the perspective of the police, the Aviation Acts and regu-
lations can be seen as an obstacle to the use of drones for specic
purposes. Law enforcement agencies in the United States have been
clamoring for the FAA to allow the rapid deployment of drones. ey
tout drones as a tactical game changer in scenarios such as hostage
situations and high-speed chases. As we will see, the FAA is reluctant
to simply open up airspace for law enforcement, even for small drones,
since they have concerns about safety. Also, in Europe, dierent
countries are currently considering the adaption of existing regulatory
frameworks that hamper the commercial use of drones. In July 2014,
the Spanish government approved a provisional regulatory framework
for commercial operations of drones, which sets out requirements
according to the weight of the unmanned remotely controlled vehicles
and the obligations of pilots and operating companies.* e regula-
tion will enable the use of drones in carrying out aerial works such
as investigation and development activities, aerial agriculture relat-
ing to treatments that require the spreading out of substances over
the surface or atmosphere, including products for extinguishing res,
aerial surveys, aerial observation and surveillance, including lming
and forest re surveillance activities, aerial advertising, radio and TV
emissions, emergency operations, search and rescue, and other types
of special work.
*
http://www.twobirds.com/en/news/articles/2014/spain/spain-temporary-regula-
tions-on-commercial-use-of-drones-approved.
154 Just ordinAry robots
In 2007, former Amsterdam police chief Eric Nordholt worried
about the encroaching cameras in an interview:
With a system of cameras and computers, the police want to control
access to dierent parts of the city. I do not think we want to live in such
a society. But the measures proposed do work towards that. erefore,
we should think about how we do wish to have it. It’s about whether
you believe that you are shaped by the city or you help shape the city.
It is about the question what the police contribution can be. As chief of
police one is not there to further doomsday predictions.
De Jong and Schuilenburg (2007)
Drones will add to the strong emphasis on monitoring and law enforce-
ment instead of nding a balance between what one does in the techni-
cal sphere and in the sphere of controlling and monitoring—with, for
example, drones—and what one does in the social eld: “to give help to
those in need.” According to Nordholt, the police should be more intel-
ligent in thinking about the question: How do we connect technologies
that enable us to control with a strong socially oriented police force?
e next two sections discuss the two main ethical issues raised by
the use of drones—safety and privacy—in more detail.
4.4 Safety
While the applications of public and civil drones are numerous, they
are not without risks. One of the most important risks is safety. e
FAA reports, obtained by the news station ABC15, show that police
departments are trying to crack down on illegal drone use, but are
struggling with the task.* e reports show that at least 23 investiga-
tions have been launched in recent years, but most of the illegal drone
operators have never been found. e 10 that were tracked down only
received ocial warnings, although one operator, Raphael Pirker,
was ned U.S. $10,000 for taking commercial photographs above the
University of Virginia (see Box 4.3). Civilian drones, however, own
with the FAA’s permission and under its scrutiny, are also susceptible
*
http://www.abc15.com/news/local-news/investigations/commercial-drones-a-
serious-safety-concern.
155drones in the City
BOX 4.3 THE CASE OF RAPHAEL PIRKER
Pirker rst caught the media’s attention in 2010 when he uploaded
footage he took of New York City and the Statue of Liberty using
his rst-person-view model plane. Authorities were notied, but
no action was taken because Pirker was not paid for the ight.
erefore, his model aircraft was subject to the 1981 Advisory
Circular and not the 2007 notice about commercial applications
for drones. en, in October 2011, Pirker was contacted by the
advertisement agency Lewis Communications and was asked to
lm aerial footages of the University of Virginia campus. For the
shoot, Pirker ew his drone under trees, through a tunnel and near
a person—a spotter working for Pirker. e FAA caught wind of
Pirker’s commercial ight. Two years later, Pirker received a ne
for U.S. $10,000, on the grounds that he ew his UAV for com-
mercial purposes and that this was in violation of an FAA regula-
tion, stating that “no person may operate an aircraft in a careless or
reckless manner so as to endanger the life or property of another.”
Pirker fought the enforcement action before the National
Transportation and Safety Board (NTSB), arguing that the
FAA did not have any authority to ne someone operating a
drone because it had not issued any formal rules governing their
use. In March 2014, an NTSB administrative law judge agreed
with Pirker. ere was no enforceable FAA rule in place, and if
the scope of the FAA’s existing regulations were correct, its posi-
tion “would then result in the risible argument that a ight in
the air of, e.g., a paper aircraft, or a toy balsa wood glider, could
subject the ‘operator’ to” these regulations. e FAA appealed,
and the appeal is pending. In a press release, it states that “[t]
he FAA is appealing the decision of an NTSB Administrative
Law Judge to the full National Transportation Safety Board,
which has the eect of staying the decision until the Board rules.
e agency is concerned that this decision could impact the safe
operation of the national airspace system and the safety of peo-
ple and property on the ground.”*
*
http://www.faa.gov/news/press_releases/news_story.cfm?newsId=15894.
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