What Upsets You About Privacy Laws?the Drone As Privacy Catalyst

[Don Hudson]

What upsets you about our Privacy Laws?

This is a fascinating article from the Standford Law Review on the increasing, private use of drone technology.

As the author states, there are shades of 1984, and even Kafka in this developing and largely unregulated approach to monitoring a citizenry.

The effects upon innocent civilians are minimal as the technology appears to be employed for reasons which many of us might find agreement. In fact, privacy notions aren't at the top of our concerns, partly due to the exchange we have chosen to make in terms of civil rights for law enforcement activities.

But war and killing-by-proxy can, by small, invisible steps, become surveillance-by-proxy.

Done any home improvements lately? Do you own the airspace above your home? We can imagine city and community councils eyeing such technological investments with increasing interest. Local police may even make lease agreements on a part-time basis.

I think the article has a point - we have voluntarily accepted the trade of increased "security" for a loss of privacy. Do we have the legal means to control the technology?

THE DRONE AS PRIVACY CATALYST

M. Ryan Calo*

Associated today with the theatre of war, the widespread domestic use of drones for surveillance seems inevitable. Existing privacy law will not stand in its way. It may be tempting to conclude on this basis that drones will further erode our individual and collective privacy. Yet the opposite may happen. Drones may help restore our mental model of a privacy violation. They could be just the visceral jolt society needs to drag privacy law into the twenty-first century.

[deicer]

Wasn't this done in Greece where they took aerial photos of cities to determine who had pools for tax rates? So it's already being done, only a matter of time before they let us know they're doing it here.....

[J.O.]

Our city has had spies looking through windows for refinished basements for years.

[Moon The Loon]

Welllll, how 'bout the Brits who have used "TV Detectors" for decades to enforce their TV Licensing (sp??) Tax?

We live in societies. Does the Society not have an inherent right to protect its interests and collect its due?

Signed,

Devil's Advocate's Apprentice Trainee Wannabe (wouldn't wanna proclaim something I am not!)

[boestar]

OPP testing unmanned flying drone

CBC News

Posted: May 9, 2013 8:50 AM ET

Last Updated: May 9, 2013 9:06 AM ET
Read 4comments4

The OPP is testing drones like the one shown here for use at traffic accident investigations. (Aeryan Scout)

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The Ontario Provincial Police are testing a remote-controlled drone as a way to give them an extra pair of eyes in the sky while investigating accidents.

Roughly resembling a model helicopter, the drones are about a metre wide, have four fixed arms and a camera attached.

More on this story

Be sure to watch CBC News Toronto tonight at 5 p.m. to see Stephanie Matteis's story about the OPP's use of unmanned drones.

Police tested the drone at Tuesday’s collision on Highway 404 near Bloomington Road.

“It's a test project right now,” said OPP Sgt. Dave Woodford.

Woodford said the drone will be used to take aerial shots after a crash.

“It will be able to map and take photos of the whole scene and hopefully down the road open up these highways a lot sooner than we normally see,” he said.

Halton Police have a drone, which has been used to locate marijuana grow ops but Peel and Toronto police departments currently don't have them.

Spokesman Mark Pugash said Toronto Police Service is looking at the technology.

“We have to keep an eye on technology and identify which technology can help us but in that area there would have to be considerable work done on protecting people's privacy,” he said.

The mini choppers are illegal in the U.S.

In Canada, each flight needs Transport Canada approval though police have blanket permission.

[Specs]

I wonder what the commercial applications are? If you're spying on people and the benign data is made public, does that then create a new commercial market for some things? Will they start charging for things that were once free?

[Boney]

Consider Boston. If there were no cameras, then those bombers would have gotten away.

Decide...hmmmm

[deicer]

I for one have no problems with cameras in public places. Where I personally draw the line is when they peek into private places.

I guess the right thing to do is to have enough cameras out there in public, to catch the bad guys when they come out of the 'private'.

[Specs]

Thinking back to the G20 demonstrations in YYZ, I wonder if drones were used there without us knowing.

What if police and governments start using drones as tools of intimidation. Wold people get out to protest government policies if they knew a drone would be collecting visual data and sending it back to some server farm with facial recognition software to catalog each and every individual in attendance? How would that affect the democratic process?

What if some investigator into government skullduggery or waste was to be followed by a drone to determine who the informant was?

Unless you're breaking some significant law, and maybe even then there might be exceptions, I think I want the right to anonymity preserved and I don't trust the government to honor that right so they should have to get a warrant specific to a dedicated purpose and for a specific period of time to employ domestic drone surveillance on people.

[Specs]

Take a look at what they do in London (UK) with cameras ....... no one being locked up (unless they have committed a crime) so much for the cameras taking away from us. I don't mind the cameras in public places and in fact think they make it safer for the rest of us.

Yes but you know you're being monitored for security reasons in areas knowingly threatened by terrorists (ahem...IRA). I think everybody accepts that reality. If you want to protest at Parliament or Westminister against poverty, colonialism or a war, you know you're being watched but the cameras can't follow you everywhere after you leave.

What about in less public places when a drone is used. Lets say a whistle blower meets a reporter somewhere off the beaten path but still in a public place like a road or an empty park. Is it right that he can then be followed by a drone? I don't think that's in the public interest.

What if go to a speech by somebody on a government watch list. Like maybe somebody from Greenpeace or PETA. Should my attendance be recorded and a file on me created without my knowing?

Is it even right that you don't know who is watching you?

Is their data even secure.

These thoughts don't make me feel very comfortable.

God^&%^&*it - where's my gun!? I'm gonna blast that infernal thing to smithereens!

[Trader]

Great---I hope the police do use these cameras. Then there is proof to prosocute the 'bad eggs' who decide to beat up a few protesters with little provocation.

These can go BOTH ways!

[J.O.]

Aerial drone locates Sask. man injured in rollover crash

Injured man, disoriented, walked three kilometres in a field before collapsing

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/story/2013/05/09/sk-rcmp-drone-infrared-night-rescue-130509.html

[inchman]

Yes but you know you're being monitored for security reasons in areas knowingly threatened by terrorists (ahem...IRA). I think everybody accepts that reality. If you want to protest at Parliament or Westminister against poverty, colonialism or a war, you know you're being watched but the cameras can't follow you everywhere after you leave.

What about in less public places when a drone is used. Lets say a whistle blower meets a reporter somewhere off the beaten path but still in a public place like a road or an empty park. Is it right that he can then be followed by a drone? I don't think that's in the public interest.

What if go to a speech by somebody on a government watch list. Like maybe somebody from Greenpeace or PETA. Should my attendance be recorded and a file on me created without my knowing?

Is it even right that you don't know who is watching you?

Is their data even secure.

These thoughts don't make me feel very comfortable.

God^&%^&*it - where's my gun!? I'm gonna blast that infernal thing to smithereens!

I've long been of the opinion that as long as you're not doing anything wrong, there is no fear in having your picture taken. In the case of the PETA analogy, authorities don't need drones to take your picture going into or coming out of any rally, or a hockey game for that matter. And drones aren't "cloaked" so it's not like it's surreptitious... as a matter of fact it is more out in the open than if a police agent was to be wearing a lapel cam and walking around an event.

There is one aspect that bothers me about surveillance of any type in that law abiding (but paranoid) people might think that they shouldn't attend events because they might be photographed and associated with obtuse groups. But, as I said, they can have their picture taken, drones or not.

But the upside is that troublemakers will have the same, but greater IMO, threat. If it was well known that drones were to be used during the Queen's Park event or at the Vancouver hockey debacle, these might not have degenerated into riots as the troublemakers would know it would be more difficult to keep their identity a secret and wouldn't have a decent business plan. As a matter of fact, at the Queen's Park riot, those causing the destruction were attacking anyone with a camera to prevent them from taking pictures. You can't threaten a drone.

In both cases, people came to these events with the explicit goal of starting a riot, some from across the border. Others just joined in because of human lemming-like wiring. If the intentional troublemakers weren't there in the first place, these events would have ended quite differently.

And... there is the positive aspect that it should reduce both the requirement for police to use force and the tendency to use excessive force in dealing with participants. Had things not gotten out of control on day one of the Queen's Park event, the police response would not have been as strong on day two.

If the whistleblower you describe is a law abiding citizen, those operating a drone will get bored at some point. (And, they would have a pretty good nest egg after they sued the operators for harassment.)

[boestar]

In Canada we are still protected from Drones being used to "invade Privacy" A person still needs to be aware they are being taped. In the US the Government signed those rights away in the name of the patriot act which essentially removed ones right to privacy. Now you have Full Fledged Predator Drones patrolling borders and cities everywhere. Here all we need to worry about is a small (1metre) limited range and duration drone with a digital camera.

These small drones definately have a place as noted in the posts above but I think we (Canadians) and a long way from needing to worry about privacy infringement just yet.

[deicer]

Having worked for what feels like forever in an environment that has/had video surveillance, no issues here with being covered while in public. Same as when I have travelled to cities that have extensive video coverage.

If they want to watch me picking my nose, or scratching my junk, well, I've done a good deed for the day making someone laugh!

As for being put on someone's watchlist, you would have to think that it could work the other way too and prove your innocence

[Don Hudson]

Drone pilot burnout triggers call for recruiting overhaul

Nidhi Subbaraman NBC News

Driving a war drone is a stressful business. Shifts up to 12 hours long are stretches of dullness, watching and waiting, interrupted by flashes of intense activity in which pilots must make life-or-death decisions. Not their own life or death, however.

Pilots may be thousands of miles away from the flying weapons system they're operating. They often head home at the end of the day, as if returning from any other office job, maybe picking up milk on the way. But while at work, their drones' onboard cameras put them in a unique position to watch people being killed and injured as a direct result of their actions.

As psychologists learn more about the mental scarring warfare leaves on drone pilots — caused by long shift hours, isolation, witnessing casualties and those Jekyll-and-Hyde days split between battlefield and home — experts from within the U.S. Air Force are calling for a review of drone pilot selection.

(article continues . . .)

I wondered when these kinds of issues would begin to bubble up from the "we don't need pilots anymore" illusion. Fatigue, suitability, capacity, discipline, as well as the practical aspects of attracting, recruiting / hiring and retaining competent, skilled, motivated pilots are just moved upstream in any notion involving "pilotless" flight.

This recent (April, 2012), presentation by the FAA entitled, "The FAA Transport Airplane Directorate perspective on single pilot transports" discusses the notion of single-pilot airliners. EASA, Thales & Boeing are discussing the notion, broaching, in my view, (because reducing the number of pilots can't possibly be shown to increase safey), the mouth-watering economic possibility for the commercial sector of the industry of reducing even further the costs of professional aircrews.

At some point, software engineers at desks must ultimately lose to human factors and the fact that even we humans can't fool nature. The question is in what "lessons" will demonstrate the "cost benefits", (which will be labeled as "progress" and "the cost of pioneering new solutions to old 'problems' ".

Should we, just because we can?

Do these "advances" come under the heading of the familiar, (and 'heroic'), "venturing where no man has gone before" which justify a sense of true progress, or is this an instrumental solution to a picayune problem which plagues investors who just want to dump the most expensive factors in commercial aviation next to the cost of fuel?

Drones have pilots, whether they be thousands of miles away on the other end of a joystick watching live computer screens, or resident in the minds and highly complex but smart-like-streetcar output of software engineers, (ed. - to be clear, this is stated with great respect for the task of software engineers because mimicking the human mind is quite a challenge . . .), intended to handle all aspects of flying that humans traditionally handle.

Did we get a vote on this?...

[Don Hudson]

Hi malcolm;

My 'did we get a vote' was partly about the trend in automation, especially the 1984 version, but you're right, no vote will be taken because the travelling public do so in the expectation that "we" (who are the industry) will look after these issues and keep things safe. By and large I think that faith is well-placed because we do indeed look after business. But like all else in a very sophisticated world it's complicated and there are holes.

The presentation by the FAA on why the crewing rules are the way they are, is very good. The most important single point made is, I think, if you're going to do single-pilot commercial heavy transport operations, there has to be a full, proven, certified capability of pilotless flight.

I'm not saying it can't happen or it won't happen. But like all magic, a) there is timely distraction from the main thrust of something someone wants but doesn't want you to see or understand the real works, and b ) there's always someone behind the curtain who is human and as a species we make mistakes, either in person or by proxy. An airplane isn't a streetcar, but those who want you to think that pilotless flight is a near-reality will tell you that, given sufficient computing power, it is.

If I may for a moment, as a final challenge to anyone who believes that pilotless flight will be a doable, safe reality before the need for physical travel itself for face-to-face interaction is obviated by other technologies only imagined in Star Trek, cite even just one example of any known occurrence of a transport aircraft system failure in which automation not only played a major interventionist role but actually saved the flight or could have saved the flight, all on its own. I can personally imagine dozens of weather / traffic / contaminated-runway / mechanical failure combinations just from having flown that would overwhelm any system and even humans in the wrong circumstances. "More automation" doesn't count unless what is "more" is spelled out. Failure is always at least a possibility, and it is that possibility (and not even probability), that keeps such notions as pilotless flight in their proper psychological and technical place. That it will be tried, and successfully (like the Google car) I have no doubt; - but commercially viable and someday actually unremarkable? Not with today's cost-plus mentality, which of course begs the original question, "Should we do this?"

Don

ed. to get rid of the

[boestar]

I would like to see what the price of a Regular Economy fare from YYZ to YVR SHOULD be. Based on ticket prices in 1970 or any time PRIOR to Deregulation. Also taking into account the full services available at the time.( Free bags, meal, blanket, magazines etc) What would that ticket cost in todays dollars?

[cavok]

In Canada we are still protected from Drones being used to "invade Privacy" A person still needs to be aware they are being taped. In the US the Government signed those rights away in the name of the patriot act which essentially removed ones right to privacy. Now you have Full Fledged Predator Drones patrolling borders and cities everywhere. Here all we need to worry about is a small (1metre) limited range and duration drone with a digital camera.

These small drones definately have a place as noted in the posts above but I think we (Canadians) and a long way from needing to worry about privacy infringement just yet.

Hi Boestar,

Not sure why you think we're protected. In Canada, there is no assumption of privacy when outdoors or in your car. A drone can observe you all day long without 'invading your privacy'.

When it comes to recording conversations (voice), Canada is also very lax. Only one party in a conversation needs to know it is being recorded in most cases. Here's a breakdown of what's legal: http://blog.privacylawyer.ca/2006/07/can-you-record-telephone-calls-without.html

[cavok]

This drone detector detects the acoustical signature of a drone to let you know when you a drone is nearby.

http://boingboing.net/2013/05/03/droneshield-crowdfunded-netw.html

[W5]

What A Drone Can See From 17,500 feet.

[Specs]

There will come a day in the not too distant future where this will all come back to haunt us. We are on the cusp of an age where you won't be able to go anywhere without being watched and you won't be able to communicate without somebody listening in.

They can come up with all the excuses and justifications they want but it's exactly the same as what the KGB and the Stasi and every other state security arm in history has used to justify their existence. In their day they used human resources and boots on the ground. We're just doing it more economically is all.

It just isn't right.

[mo32a]

Well they would get pretty bored listening to my telephone conversations.

Now if they could watch and tell me where my ball went when I sliced it off the tee we would have something.

[Moon The Loon]

Now if they could watch and tell me where my ball went when I sliced it off the tee we would have something.

Slippery slope. I don't think I'd wanna have a GPS tracker on my balls...

[mo32a]

Slippery slope. I don't think I'd wanna have a GPS tracker on my balls...

Don't worry, you will get there someday, and then you will be happy for the GPS.