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".
BAE drones are
programmed to take off and land on their own, stay
airborne for up to 15 hours and reach heights of 20,000ft,
making them invisible from the ground.
Far more sophisticated than the remote-controlled
rotor-blade robots that hover 50-metres above the ground –
which police already use – BAE UAVs are programmed to
undertake specific operations. They can, for example,
deviate from a routine flightpath after encountering
suspicious activity on the ground, or undertake numerous
reconnaissance tasks simultaneously.
The
surveillance data is fed back to control rooms via
monitoring equipment such as high-definition cameras, radar
devices and infrared sensors.
Previously, Kent police has said the drone scheme was
intended for use over the English Channel to monitor
shipping and detect im
migrants crossing from France.
However, the documents suggest the maritime focus was, at
least in part, a public relations strategy designed to
minimise civil liberty concerns.
"There is potential for these [maritime] uses to be
projected as a 'good news' story to the public rather than
more 'big brother'," a minute from the one of the earliest
meetings, in July 2007, states.
Behind closed doors, the scope for UAVs has expanded
significantly.
Working with various policing
organisations
as well as the Serious and Organised Crime Agency, the
Maritime and Fisheries Agency, HM Revenue and Customs and
the UK Border Agency, BAE and Kent police have drawn up
wider lists of potential uses.
One
document lists "[detecting] theft from cash machines,
preventing theft of tractors and monitoring antisocial
driving" as future tasks for police drones, while another
states the aircraft could be used for road and railway
monitoring, search and rescue, event security and covert
urban surveillance.
Under a section entitled "Other routine tasks (Local
Councils) – surveillance", another document states the
drones could be used to combat "fly-posting, fly-tipping,
abandoned vehicles, abnormal loads, waste management".
Senior
officers have
conceded there will be "large
capital costs" involved in buying the drones, but argue this
will be shared by various government agencies. They also say
unmanned aircraft are no more intrusive than CCTV cameras
and far cheaper to run than helicopters.
Partnership officials have said the UAVs could raise
revenue from
private companies. At one strategy meeting it
was
proposed the aircraft could undertake commercial work
during spare time to offset some of the running costs.
There are two models of BAE drone under
consideration,
neither of which has been licensed to fly in non-segregated
airspace by the CAA. The Herti (High Endurance Rapid
Technology Insertion) is a five-metre long aircraft
that the Ministry of Defence deployed in Afghanistan for tests in
2007 and 2009.
CAA officials are sceptical that any Herti-type drone
manufacturer can develop the
technology to make them
airworthy for the UK before 2015 at the earliest. However
the South Coast Partnership has set its sights on another
BAE prototype drone, the GA22 airship, developed by
Lindstrand Technologies which would be subject to different
regulations. BAE and Kent police believe the 22-metre long
airship could be certified for civilian use by 2012.
Military drones have been used
extensively by the US to
assist
reconnaissance and airstrikes in Afghanistan and
Iraq.
But their use in war zones has been
blamed for high
civilian death tolls.
