In Texas, where traffic congestion and rapid population growth pose challenges for law enforcement response times, drones are the latest tech tools agencies are adding to their arsenal. The Montgomery County Sheriff's Office has announced a plan to implement a Drones as First Responder program in The Woodlands, a system that allows drones to respond to 911 calls ahead of ground units. As reported by the Houston Chronicle, the initiative is expected to provide a cost-efficient solution to improve response times.
Privacy concerns, nevertheless, trail the technological stride. Critics, including the American Civil Liberties Union, have expressed apprehension over the impact such programs may have on personal privacy. In a letter published last year, ACLU Senior Policy Analyst Jay Stanley highlighted the risk of warrantless surveillance becoming a source of paranoia for the public. Questions remain as to how the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office intends to address these privacy issues since they have not immediately responded to queries about their policy for the upcoming drone program.
Concurrently, the Bee Cave Police Department, in partnership with the Austin-based startup Eve Vehicles, is testing out autonomous drone cameras that require no pilot. Bee Cave Police Chief Brian Jones touts the Aerial-Visual Integrated drones (AV8), saying, "These advanced drones will be able to arrive on scene of any type of call much quicker than an officer in a vehicle would be able to respond, and it will give us real-time intelligence and real-time information as to what the officers are en route to." Attributed by a Community Impact release, drones will feed live video to law enforcement as they manage incidents from traffic accidents to potential natural disasters.
Eve Vehicles' Vice President of Strategic Partnerships, John Buell, emphasized during a statement that the AV8 program is not about spying on people's backyards, but rather about using public vectors to assess emergencies quickly and accurately. As these drones begin fielding 911 calls in the coming months, the balance between high-tech policing and civic freedoms will be scrutinized under the hands of both law enforcement and civil rights advocates.
