The Student Room Group

The onward march of drones

Today we hear that the Met are going to use drones to monitor drivers in London, particularly those engaged in racing or other dangerous activities.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/jul/08/met-become-first-uk-force-deploy-drone-monitor-road-users

They will have night vision and be used to inform officers on the ground of incidents.

Arguably this is a good thing (and anything that causes people to stop driving in London, or takes cars away from people, is a good thing), but it makes one wonder how far drone-based surveillance is going to go.

I suspect before long there will be permanent drones in the sky over all cities and towns, routinely logging movements, spying on social interactions (for research purposes of course) and monitoring political activity.

They will be an absolute gift to the sort of neo-fascist governments we are now inexorably heading for in post-Brexit Britain, under permanent Hard Right rule once the ERG take power under Johnson and Scotland and then probably Wales quit the UK and we are permanently rendered a financialised offshore freeport for tax evaders and international criminals.

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Reply 1
Nope, because their budgets won't stretch to the types that could perform those roles for that length of time or in that volume.
Good to see you have cheered up and started being more positive.
Original post by Fullofsurprises
Today we hear that the Met are going to use drones to monitor drivers in London, particularly those engaged in racing or other dangerous activities.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/jul/08/met-become-first-uk-force-deploy-drone-monitor-road-users

They will have night vision and be used to inform officers on the ground of incidents.

Arguably this is a good thing (and anything that causes people to stop driving in London, or takes cars away from people, is a good thing), but it makes one wonder how far drone-based surveillance is going to go.

I suspect before long there will be permanent drones in the sky over all cities and towns, routinely logging movements, spying on social interactions (for research purposes of course) and monitoring political activity.

They will be an absolute gift to the sort of neo-fascist governments we are now inexorably heading for in post-Brexit Britain, under permanent Hard Right rule once the ERG take power under Johnson and Scotland and then probably Wales quit the UK and we are permanently rendered a financialised offshore freeport for tax evaders and international criminals.


You are using every avenue to show your anti-Brexit stance.
Makes sense. I always wondered why a YouTuber has more aerial ability than a police force; 3-man crew needed just to follow some scruff on a stolen moped. Complete waste of money and resources, if you ask me.
Reply 6
Original post by Wired_1800
You are using every avenue to show your anti-Brexit stance.

And anti-technology.
Original post by Drewski
And anti-technology.

Too many of our technical advances are utilised not for the public good, but to protect, defend and assert the excessive rights of the super-rich and their government tools and flunkies, globally.

I'm not anti-technology, but increasingly these technologies collectively represent the modern equivalent of the Norman castles that were used to dominate the peasantry and attempt to render permanent an appallingly oppressive extreme class system. What is happening now is no different.
Original post by Notoriety
Makes sense. I always wondered why a YouTuber has more aerial ability than a police force; 3-man crew needed just to follow some scruff on a stolen moped. Complete waste of money and resources, if you ask me.

There's clearly a valid case for using them, for example, to pursue the scooter gangs. But alas, it won't stop with socially useful purposes that advantage the citizenry.
Original post by Wired_1800
You are using every avenue to show your anti-Brexit stance.

I am simply calling it the way it is going to be. Have you not noticed that Boris is for example now openly seeking to abolish Parliament to get the ERG agenda through?
Original post by Fullofsurprises
I am simply calling it the way it is going to be. Have you not noticed that Boris is for example now openly seeking to abolish Parliament to get the ERG agenda through?


Did Boris tell you that or are you using the anti-Brexit media as your source?

Nobody knows what will really happen. The EU is not the be all and end all.
Original post by Drewski
Nope, because their budgets won't stretch to the types that could perform those roles for that length of time or in that volume.


Nor do we have the trained crews available (partly due to not enough money being spent to retain them).
Original post by Fullofsurprises
I am simply calling it the way it is going to be. Have you not noticed that Boris is for example now openly seeking to abolish Parliament to get the ERG agenda through?


Better than living under a EU superstate.
Original post by Tempest II
Nor do we have the trained crews available (partly due to not enough money being spent to retain them).

Ironically enough, the kids in the moped gangs these are being used to hunt would probably do a better job of flying them.
Original post by Andrew97
Better than living under a EU superstate.

It will be difficult for harcore Brexiteers to explain how the EU is MORE democratic than the new ERG-neofascist Britain. Wasn't it supposed to be the other way round?
Original post by 999tigger
Good to see you have cheered up and started being more positive.

Lol, it's hard to be optimistic these days.

Stand by for Boris to place a huge order for drones when he comes in.
Before we all get too far off topic, probably with FOS believing that a "hard right" Tory govt will start drone striking in the UK or something similar; surely having an RPAS available to the UK emergency services should there be another terrorist attack, flooding or even another Grenfell fire type disaster isn't exactly a bad thing?
It's certainly cheaper and can fly far longer than the current helicopters the police use.
Original post by Drewski
Ironically enough, the kids in the moped gangs these are being used to hunt would probably do a better job of flying them.


They can't do a worse job than the Royal Artillery and their Watchkeepers it must be said. Those things really are a waste of money.
Original post by Tempest II
Before we all get too far off topic, probably with FOS believing that a "hard right" Tory govt will start drone striking in the UK or something similar; surely having an RPAS available to the UK emergency services should there be another terrorist attack, flooding or even another Grenfell fire type disaster isn't exactly a bad thing?
It's certainly cheaper and can fly far longer than the current helicopters the police use.

They might well be better and more environmentally friendly than choppers (less noisy for one thing) and less expensive to run. I don't doubt those things. What I am sceptical about is placing limits on their surveillance uses.

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