Eyes in the Sky

In the near future you may start seeing drones over your head as all the pieces appear to be lining up for the eventual introduction of routine aerial surveillance in everyday life. Drones small enough to fly around your window or large enough to hover far above the earth, out of site but watching over miles of land will be used in a variety of ways from surveillance to marketing purposes. Police enthusiasm for military weaponry (and a drone industry salivating over a new market) is driving a rapid spread of domestic law enforcement drones, which are already being used by border agents. In February, the FAA was directed to lay out guidelines opening up airspace for commercial and civil drones by 2015, at the latest; the technology is likely to be embraced by property companies, paparazzi, and totally random people who want to spy on others. (There are also many positive uses, like helping track wildfires or oil spills.)

Would you feel observed, regardless of how or whether the information was actually used? Well I have found a list of spy technologies and surveillance programs, military and civilian, that can take to the air on drones within the next few years.

WiFi and phone hacking: The Wireless Aerial Surveillance Platform (WASP) can break into WiFi networks and hack cell phones. Plus, its antennas mimic cell phone towers, allowing the machine, allegedly, to tap into cell phone conversations and access text messages.

NYPD sensor that sees through clothes: The NYPD, which is not known for its cautious approach to the use of surveillance, announced recently that it was perfecting a sensor that uses radiation to reveal weapons hidden under a person's clothes. I could see them attaching these sensor to drones.

Biometrics: Advances in facial recognition, iris scans and other identifying biometric markers are speeding along, with both police departments and federal agencies. Biometrics like facial recognition (and eventually iris scans) are a natural fit for aerial vehicles, as camera zoom and image quality continue to improve. Meanwhile, government databases are collecting more biometric information from more people, making the technology increasingly useful as an identification and tracking tool. The logical outcome: a zoom lens on a drone could zero in and snap a picture that can be scanned and run through a number of databases.

Video analytics:
Private companies, government agencies and academic institutions are working to improve cameras that can hone in on specific objects or people, figure out location, or pick people out of a crowd.

Sense-through-the-wall (STTW) technology: For about a decade various branches of the military have been working to create sensors that can penetrate walls. DARPA's Visibuilding project is working on "surveillance capabilities to detect personnel within buildings, to determine building layouts, and to locate weapons caches and shielded enclosures within buildings.

These are just some of the uses for the drones that will be cluttering our airspace soon. How do you feel about drones being used more in the civilian sector? Safer? Regardless of what we may think or feel about them, the eye in the sky will be watching.