Pedro Fiuza/NurPhoto/PA Images
As countries around the world are gradually re-opening following lockdowns, government authorities are using surveillance drones in an attempt to enforce social distancing rules.
In India, police are using AI-equipped drones developed by US start-up Skylark to monitor evening curfews and the distance between people who are outside during the day.
The drones are being used in six cities in the northern province of Punjab, and are also being trialled in the southern city of Bangalore, says Skylark CEO Amarjot Singh.
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Each drone is fitted with a camera and an AI that can detect humans within a range of 150 metres and 1 kilometre. If it spots people it can send an alert to police in the district located nearest to the sighting.
The system can also calculate the physical distance between two or more people and let the police know if people get too close to each other. The police can then go to the location and issue a fine if they see people breaching the rules.
“Previously, the police had no idea of where people were gathering, so now they are able to view larger areas,” says Singh.
India was shut down on March 25 and lockdown restrictions remain in place until at least 17 May in many parts of the country. In the more severely hit parts of the country, residents aren’t allowed to go outside at night or during the day without reason.
In the US, authorities in several states have used drones fitted with cameras and loudspeakers to broadcast messages to urge social distancing.
Some firms have also floated the idea of using drones equipped with thermal imaging to identify potentially infected people with fevers. However, the World Health Organisation suggests that “temperature screening alone may not be very effective” at detecting covid-19.
In the UK, Derbyshire Police were criticised for drone footage posted on social media in March, appearing to shame people exercising in the Peak District, even though they were adhering to social distancing guidelines.
Drones were also used by Chinese authorities at highway checkpoints in February, when the covid-19 outbreak spread domestically there.
“Police departments around the world have been looking for a good excuse to begin to acquire and use drones more regularly,” says Matthew Guariglia at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil liberties group based in San Francisco.
We are concerned that though the public might not mind the use of the drones in this case, for the purposes of public health, they may stick around long afterwards, says Guariglia. It opens the opportunity for future police surveillance of protests or other large public gatherings, particularly if the drones are equipped with facial recognition, he says.
Drones that are able to recognise and track individuals raise serious privacy concerns, agrees Singh. Skylark’s drones are only able to detect human bodies and can’t pick up any specific facial details, he says. “Every technology needs to be used responsibly,” he says.
Because many of these surveillance technologies are being developed by private companies, it is difficult to know whether any drones currently in use by government authorities for covid-19 monitoring include facial recognition, says Guariglia.
“Drones might be a small part of some kind of recovery effort, but they cannot be a majority of how we invest public health time and resources,” says Guariglia. “We cannot surveil and police out of our way out of an epidemic.”
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