Police use of drones sparks discussion over public safety vs. privacy rights

Del. Luke Clippinger, right, moderates a panel on police use of drones. Others on panel are, from left, Montgomery County Police Lt. Tony Galladora, Montgomery County Councilmember Dawn Luedtke and Jay Stanley of the American Civil Liberties Union. Photo by William J. Ford.

The ACLU’s Jay Stanley acknowledges that he’s paid “to think about the ways this could go wrong” – but he said he’s thought of 10 issues that communities should be concerned about before they let their local police use drones to respond to calls.

Drone supporters said that they understand the concerns, but that police use of drones can help departments stretch their resources and improve their response times, while installing safeguards to protect peoples’ privacy rights.

That was the debate that played out at a session on drones at a Maryland Association of Counties session Wednesday morning at the association’s summer conference in Ocean City.

Supporting viewpoints came from Montgomery County Councilmember Dawn Luedtke (D) and Montgomery County Police Lt. Tony Galladora, who talked about the county’s “Drone as First Responder” program that began last year.

The county’s use of the device, also known as an “unmanned aerial vehicle,” is limited to downtown Silver Spring and Wheaton. Galladora said those two areas were chosen because of “high service calls” for burglaries, assaults and other offenses.

Using the drone, officers can see live images of a scene and track the movement of people from above.

From November 2023 when it began through June 30 of this year, according to county data presented Wednesday, the drone program was most often used to respond to calls for theft/larceny (35% of the time); suspicious circumstances, person or vehicle (14%); and assault (12%). During that time frame, drones responded to nearly 1,100 calls.

With a decrease in officers at the department, Luedtke said, the use of a drone allows officers to tend to more serious situations, or do other work.

The department ensured that cameras are not on until the drone reaches its destination. Luedtke said that was a response to public meetings and community concerns “about wanting the cameras only to start recording once it arrived on site.”

“So while the drone is in flight out to its destination, the cameras are pointed upward and they are not on,” she said. “That was the direct result of community feedback.”

Luedtke said the county plans to expand into Gaithersburg, Germantown and Montgomery Village, although it is not known exactly when that will happen. She also said Montgomery County is the biggest jurisdiction in the nation to operate a drone program, which costs about $200,000 that includes $35,000 for a drone and software.

The cost is just one of the factors for officials to consider, said Stanley, senior policy analyst with the national American Civil Liberties Union’s Speech, Privacy and Technology Project. Communities need to determine whether that money could be best used elsewhere, he said.

More law enforcement agencies could implement similar drone programs thanks to the Federal Aviation Administration. Amazon announced in May the federal agency that the company could operate drones “beyond visual line of sight,” expanding its reach to customers.

In terms of law enforcement agencies launching drone programs, Stanley noted that there are an estimated 14,000 to 16,000 police departments nationwide. “I’m paid to be paranoid and to think about the ways this could go wrong,” he  said.

Among the 10 drone issues he outlined were the need for communities to  think about the importance of democratic process, usage limits and mass surveillance.

He highlighted a court case the ACLU filed with a nonprofit organization, Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle, against the Baltimore Police Department’s unauthorized use of a surveillance program taking footage throughout the city. In 2021, a federal appeals court ruled the department’s program was unconstitutional and ordered it to get rid of all the data collected.

“The courts are struggling with these issues, and they’re going to apply to drones,” he said. “As the drones explode over us, there’s a lot of unanswered legal questions.”

Del. Luke Clippinger (D-Baltimore City), chair of the House of Delegates Judiciary Committee, moderated Wednesday’s discussion. He said there could possibly be a briefing for his committee on drones when the 90-day legislative session begins in January.

“What happens when a private security company decides that they’re going to run a drone over … [and] follow them [people] out of the building, in the building, and then out of the building, and then presumably, somewhere else,” Clippinger said after the more than one-hour discussion.

“You could track them for quite a while. You could do it independent of the need to contact a police officer, at least initially,” he said. “So that creates a whole range of different questions.”