RCMP aims to dramatically expand reach into remote areas via drones

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The RCMP is looking to expand the growing use of drones by Canadian police, issuing a tender for long-range aircraft that could reach far-flung crime scenes and other incidents well before officers arrived.

The force, like others in Canada, is currently using off-the-shelf drones in more contained urban areas.

A recently posted tender document asks vendors instead to supply machines capable of traveling at least 400 kilometres and five hours on a single battery charge, aiding the Mounties’ many detachments in remote parts of the country.

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The plan would place the RCMP among the first forces in North America to employ drones as “first responders,” making it to destinations before officers, and flying well outside the line of sight of the operator, says a surveillance expert.

The devices — officially called remote piloted aircraft systems (RPAS) — would have to fly as fast as 100 kilometres an hour and transmit video, thermal imaging and other data back to a base station in real time, says the RCMP’s tender document.

Being responsible for “the majority of Canada’s land mass,” the force has detachments that cover tens of thousands of square kilometres of sparsely populated area, said spokeswoman Sgt. Kim Chamberland by email.

Drones that “travel at high speed over long distances would help increase police and public safety by arriving first on scene, retrieving as much information as possible and relaying it to emergency service personnel on their way,” said the request for proposals.

“This technology would be particularly useful in search and rescue operations and responding to emergency calls or natural disasters, where time is of the essence. RPAS can fly direct to location, alleviating any traffic or ground roadblocks.”

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The drones should be able to automatically detect motion from vehicles and people at least a kilometre away, then send an alert back to the base station, says the tender document.

The document mentions some possible real-world applications. It says drones could help police locate suspects fleeing from an armed robbery in a remote location, or avoid the dangers of high-speed chases by following a suspect vehicle until it comes to a stop.

The RFP underscores how Canadian law enforcement has increasingly, but with little fanfare, turned to the flying machines as a unique policing tool, while also sparking concern among civil-rights advocates about potential invasion of privacy.

Successes have included a drone’s recent location of a suspect in a deadly stranger attack on the streets of Vancouver, and the Ontario Provincial Police use of the craft to monitor outlaw motorcycle-gang gatherings. A Toronto Police drone discovered a wandering Alzheimer’s patient in the dark of a winter night last December when officers couldn’t find her, likely saving her life, the service said.

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At the same time the Toronto force has drawn some controversy for its drone surveillance of a protest, and use of the devices to pinpoint people setting off unauthorized fireworks in a crowd on the shores of Lake Ontario last July 1.

The RCMP plan would be just the second instance in Canada of police operating drones as first responders beyond the pilot’s line of sight, raising novel privacy questions, said Scott Thompson, a sociology professor and surveillance expert at the University of Saskatchewan. Police in Delta, B.C., started the first such program in Canada this summer, he said.

Drones could collect video and other data en route to their destinations — often overflying the same territory — without the presence of officers on the ground to tip off people to what’s happening, said Thompson.

“This is a new moment,” he said. “It kind of opens up that space as being kind of a warrantless search.”

“You’re going to see basic things (recorded by drones) that might have been understood as being private — you’re in your backyard by yourself or with your family. That’s a different expectation of privacy.”

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Thompson recommends that the Mounties and others have open discussions about the technology to ensure that the benefits police gain from it outweigh possible risks.

Chamberland said the RCMP completed a privacy impact assessment in 2019 on drone use, and pilots must undergo privacy training. The force has a policy that indicates when officers need to request a judicial warrant for certain drone activity. But critics still worry.

The Canadian Civil Liberties Association actually urged Ontario’s Hamilton Police Service last year to halt its drone program, saying that officers “do not need more tools to invade the privacy of Hamiltonians.”

The group said drones stand to capture more images of individual people at or near crime scenes than is relevant, and that hovering over large-scale gatherings could chill freedom of expression. It also complained that the service’s drone program was launched and expanded without consulting the Ontario privacy commissioner or “marginalized communities that stand to suffer the most from increased aerial surveillance.”

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It also warned that the force’s policy does not specifically outlaw arming drones or using them with facial-recognition software to identify people spied from above.

Privacy advocates have expressed particular concern about surveillance by the devices — as opposed to having them respond to live incidents.

An RCMP article says it uses the machines for surveillance only after obtaining a search warrant or “where urgent or exigent circumstances make it impractical” to get a judge’s permission.

Drone data used as evidence in criminal cases is kept for at least two years, until it no longer has “business value,” at which point it’s destroyed or anonymized and kept for research or statistical purposes, the force says. Other information gathered by drones is held for a “predetermined period of time” before being disposed of, it says.

The Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police has no formal position on use of the devices, said spokeswoman Natalie Wright, but she noted that several forces do employ them for training and tactical purposes.

The new RCMP tender calls for two phases — a six-month “proof of feasibility” stage with funding of up to $300,000 per contract, followed by a second phase of a year, offering contracts of as much as $1 million each.

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