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New report on New York police’s drone operations released amid sightings

Inquiry found NYPD’s current use and impact policies do not ‘sufficiently disclose’ its technology capability

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A new report from the New York City department of investigation on the New York police department’s drone operations has been released amid a flurry of drone sightings and activity along the eastern seaboard and elsewhere across the US.

The report indicates that the NYPD’s current use and impact policies regarding its drone operations do not “sufficiently disclose details related to the capabilities of the technology”.

Released on Wednesday, the report examines the NYPD’s compliance with the Public Oversight of Surveillance Technology Act, and its impact and use policies (IUP) around its drone operations.

The report concludes that the NYPD policy regarding the use and impact of unmanned aircraft systems “does not sufficiently disclose all of the information required by the Post Act, as it does not provide a complete and accurate picture of all aspects of NYPD unmanned aircraft systems operations in practice”.

Additionally, the policy does not “sufficiently disclose details related to the capabilities of the technology and the policies and procedures regulating its use”, the report states.

Jocelyn E Strauber, the New York City department of investigation commissioner, said in a statement in the report that while “drones can be a critical public safety tool capable of enhancing NYPD operations” this report “found that NYPD’s Impact and Use policies do not fully and accurately describe the Department’s unmanned aircraft systems’ practices in certain respects and issued key recommendations to achieve that goal”.

The report adds that the policy “fails to disclose several capabilities” of the drones, including features that enable fully autonomous and pre-programmed flights, two- and three-dimensional mapping technologies, two-way communication capabilities and glass-breaker attachments.

The report also states, among other things, that the policy does not “disclose any potential health and safety impacts” of the drones including risks related to personal injury, property damage, and concerns associated with the device’s lithium-ion batteries”.

In a statement, the New York police department said: “The Department thanks the DOI for its report, we look forward to reviewing it and considering its recommendations.”

Among the recommendations made by the report are for the use and impact policies to be enhanced and updated to include “all the capabilities” of its drone fleets, “to accurately describe the approval, supervision, and reporting structure” of the drone operations and more.

The recommendations “call on NYPD to enhance its unmanned aircraft systems’ impact and use policy by providing additional information about the drone program and drone capabilities, thereby increasing public transparency related to NYPD’s use of this technology”, the New York City inspector general, Jeanene L Barrett, said in a statement.

Since the NYPD announced its unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) program in 2018, the report states that privacy advocacy groups and others have raised concerns about the potential use of drones for surveillance.

The groups have argued over the years that the department has not established “meaningful restrictions” on drone usage, which the groups say raises the risk of unwarranted surveillance of New Yorkers through this technology, according to the report.

“NYPD’s increase in drone usage in recent years has raised privacy concerns related to how drones are used to conduct police surveillance and monitoring,” Barrett said.

The NYPD’s drone usage has steadily increased since 2019, the report states, as drones are used by the NYPD in search and rescue missions, disaster response, documentation of traffic accidents and crime scenes, crowd monitoring, and for situational awareness in active shooter and hostage situations.

Last year, NYPD drones were reportedly deployed on more than 4,000 flight missions, according to the report, including incidents associated with 2,300 priority calls for service.

This year, a new program, “Drone as First Responder”, which involves deploying NYPD drones to priority public safety calls, was announced and is now operational in five commands in three boroughs.

“New York City is flying into the future as we keep New Yorkers safe,” the New York mayor, Eric Adams, said last month. “We are leveraging the latest technology to enhance the NYPD’s emergency-response capabilities, remotely sending drones to the exact longitude and latitude of where an emergency call comes and sometimes in as little as a minute.”

In recent weeks, drones have been making headlines due to dozens of reported sightings in areas of New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and other areas along the east coast, which have sparked panic and led to conspiracy theories.

The FBI is currently investigating those sightings, and have said that there is no evidence of a threat to public safety.