A police department’s plan to use “pandemic drones” crashed and burned before it could even take off.
The Westport Police Department, located in Connecticut’s hardest-hit county of Fairfield, has abandoned its idea to use high-tech drones that can detect symptoms of coronavirus infection from up to 190 feet away. The backtracking came after people expressed privacy concerns about the program.
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On Thursday, Police Chief Foti Koskinas and First Selectman Jim Marpe said the drone surveillance plan would not come to fruition because it was “not well-received,” according to Westport News.
“In our good faith effort to get ahead of the virus and potential need to manage and safely monitor crowds and social distancing in this environment, our announcement was perhaps misinterpreted, not well-received, and posed many additional questions,” Marpe said in a statement.
“We heard and respect your concerns and are therefore stepping back and reconsidering the full impact of the technology and its use in law enforcement protocol,” he added.
David McGuire, the American Civil Liberties Union of Connecticut’s executive director, said that the focus should not be on using drones but rather providing adequate healthcare during the coronavirus pandemic.
“We are not hearing a cry for new surveillance technologies,” McGuire said. “The urgent need at the moment, according to public health experts, is to ramp up testing capability, suppress transmission through social distancing measures, and support our hospitals as they face an influx of patients.”
The police had planned to partner with drone company Dragonfly, which said the “pandemic drones” would be able to display respiratory and heart rates for those analyzed and also have the ability to detect a person coughing in a crowd. Police had hoped the technology would help to better monitor social distancing in public areas.
“This technology not only enhances the safety of our officers and the public, but the concept of using drones remains a go-to technology for reaching the most remote areas with little to no manpower needed,” Koskinas said around the time the program was announced.
In early April, New Jersey’s Elizabeth Police Department announced that it would use talking drones to better enforce social distancing. A California police department also said it was looking into ways the technology could help officers during the health crisis.
Fairfield County has had more than 10,000 confirmed coronavirus infections and at least 662 deaths, according to the New York Times.
