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CCTV in the sky: police plan to use

military-style spy drones
Arms manufacturer BAE Systems developing national strategy
with consortium of government agencies

Paul Lewis
The Guardian, Saturday 23 January 2010

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Drones could be used for civilian surveillance in the UK as early as 2012. Source: BAE

Police in the UK are planning to use unmanned spy drones, controversially deployed in
Afghanistan, for the "routine" monitoring of antisocial motorists, protesters, agricultural
thieves and fly-tippers, in a significant expansion of covert state surveillance.

The arms manufacturer BAE Systems, which produces a range of unmanned aerial
vehicles (UAVs) for war zones, is adapting the military-style planes for a consortium of
government agencies led by Kent police.

Documents from the South Coast Partnership, a Home Office-backed project in which
Kent police and others are developing a national drone plan with BAE, have been
obtained by the Guardian under the Freedom of Information Act.

They reveal the partnership intends to begin using the drones in time for the 2012
Olympics. They also indicate that police claims that the technology will be used for
maritime surveillance fall well short of their intended use – which could span a range of
police activity – and that officers have talked about selling the surveillance data to
private companies. A prototype drone equipped with high-powered cameras and
sensors is set to take to the skies for test flights later this year.

The Civil Aviation Authority, which regulates UK airspace, has been told by BAE and
Kent police that civilian UAVs would "greatly extend" the government's surveillance
capacity and "revolutionise policing". The CAA is currently reluctant to license UAVs in
normal airspace because of the risk of collisions with other aircraft, but adequate "sense
and avoid" systems for drones are only a few years away.

Five other police forces have signed up to the scheme, which is considered a pilot
preceding the countrywide adoption of the technology for "surveillance, monitoring and

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evidence gathering". The partnership's stated mission is to introduce drones "into the
routine work of the police, border authorities and other government agencies" across the
UK.

Concerned about the slow pace of progress of licensing issues, Kent police's assistant
chief constable, Allyn Thomas, wrote to the CAA last March arguing that military drones
would be useful "in the policing of major events, whether they be protests or the
Olympics". He said interest in their use in the UK had "developed after the terrorist
attack in Mumbai".

Stressing that he was not seeking to interfere with the regulatory process, Thomas
pointed out that there was "rather more urgency in the work since Mumbai and we have
a clear deadline of the 2012 Olympics".

BAE drones are programmed to take off and land on their own, stay airborne for up to
15 hours and reach heights of 20,000ft, making them invisible from the ground.

Far more sophisticated than the remote-controlled rotor-blade robots that hover
50-metres above the ground – which police already use – BAE UAVs are programmed
to undertake specific operations. They can, for example, deviate from a routine
flightpath after encountering suspicious activity on the ground, or undertake numerous
reconnaissance tasks simultaneously.

The surveillance data is fed back to control rooms via monitoring equipment such as
high-definition cameras, radar devices and infrared sensors.

Previously, Kent police has said the drone scheme was intended for use over the English
Channel to monitor shipping and detect immigrants crossing from France. However,
the documents suggest the maritime focus was, at least in part, a public relations
strategy designed to minimise civil liberty concerns.

"There is potential for these [maritime] uses to be projected as a 'good news' story to
the public rather than more 'big brother'," a minute from the one of the earliest
meetings, in July 2007, states.

Behind closed doors, the scope for UAVs has expanded significantly. Working with
various policing organisations as well as the Serious and Organised Crime Agency, the
Maritime and Fisheries Agency, HM Revenue and Customs and the UK Border Agency,
BAE and Kent police have drawn up wider lists of potential uses.

One document lists "[detecting] theft from cash machines, preventing theft of tractors
and monitoring antisocial driving" as future tasks for police drones, while another states
the aircraft could be used for road and railway monitoring, search and rescue, event
security and covert urban surveillance.

Under a section entitled "Other routine tasks (Local Councils) – surveillance", another
document states the drones could be used to combat "fly-posting, fly-tipping, abandoned
vehicles, abnormal loads, waste management".

Senior officers have conceded there will be "large capital costs" involved in buying the
drones, but argue this will be shared by various government agencies. They also say
unmanned aircraft are no more intrusive than CCTV cameras and far cheaper to run
than helicopters.

Partnership officials have said the UAVs could raise revenue from private companies. At
one strategy meeting it was proposed the aircraft could undertake commercial work
during spare time to offset some of the running costs.

There are two models of BAE drone under consideration, neither of which has been

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licensed to fly in non-segregated airspace by the CAA. The Herti (High Endurance
Rapid Technology Insertion) is a five-metre long aircraft that the Ministry of Defence
deployed in Afghanistan for tests in 2007 and 2009.

CAA officials are sceptical that any Herti-type drone manufacturer can develop the
technology to make them airworthy for the UK before 2015 at the earliest. However the
South Coast Partnership has set its sights on another BAE prototype drone, the GA22
airship, developed by Lindstrand Technologies which would be subject to different
regulations. BAE and Kent police believe the 22-metre long airship could be certified for
civilian use by 2012.

Military drones have been used extensively by the US to assist reconnaissance and
airstrikes in Afghanistan and Iraq.

But their use in war zones has been blamed for high civilian death tolls.

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2010

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