 |
| Created using ‘drone icon’ by Blaise Sewell (CC BY 3.0 US) |
 |
| DJI Quadcoptor Phantom Vision Plus by Vicki Burton (CC BY-SA 2.0) |
I was out with
my family, visiting friends in the country and we were at a winery having
lunch. Now, what began as a point of curiosity (oooh look! A drone), soon
became a tad unsettling for a few reasons (that I could discern);
To start with I’m not entirely comfortable with being filmed
or photographed by unknown persons/agencies at the best of times. The fact that
I was outside looking for a secluded tree that my three-year old could wee on
(with the staff’s permission), perhaps made me a bit more sensitive, as this is
something I definitely don’t want filmed. The clincher though, is how apparent
the power imbalance is, in that we were not only unable to escape the drone’s
sight-line but also that the operator was nowhere to be seen. This has a similar
effect to a stranger staring you down for no reason, but with the added insult
that you can’t avoid or address the person in question, or even guess at their motives.
It is an invasion of privacy to which the victim has no recourse.
Under such conditions it is near impossible to relax, or 'act normally', as even the awareness that you are being watched (and therefore judged) is enough to make you moderate your behaviour (in my case so as not to draw attention). Glenn Greenwald makes this point wonderfully in his 2014 Ted Talk.
— Brendan Williams (@Brendan_L_W) July 21, 2016
Needless to say, I encouraged my son to hold on until an
indoor toilet was available.
What I had experienced (to a very minor degree) was that the
‘visibility of surveilled subjects and the indirect visibility/unverifiability
of supervisors create a power effect that coerces the surveilled individuals to
alter their behaviour…’ (Završnik, A 2016 p.173). In this particular case I’m
sure nothing will come of it. It was probably someone just playing with their
new toy. However, with drones set to become more common in urban environments,
the ethical as well as security implications need to be considered.
Surveillance is by no means the only use for drones, with our
flying-friends being employed for: ‘search and rescue, news reporting, crop
spraying, air quality monitoring, after-the-fact crime scene investigation,
surveying, disaster response, wildlife tracking, research into the dynamics of
violent storms, spotting wildfires, filmmaking, and traffic monitoring’ (Villasenor,
J 2014 p.236) to name a few. Their utility is obvious and much has been made of
this point, however ‘the rapid development of this technology suggests the need
to shift from what these airborne devices can do to how they should be used’ (West,
JP, & Bowman, JS 2016 p.649). This is especially pertinent when we see them
being utilised by the likes of law enforcement agencies, such
as in NSW recently.
 |
| Drone (CC0 1.0) |
The lack
of formal legislation surrounding the usage of drones is point for concern
enough, but also the lack of guidelines dealing with the limits of
institutional surveillance is worrying. West and Bowman ask ‘are the right
things being surveilled for the right reasons—and how is that known?’ (West,
JP, & Bowman, JS 2016 p.653). This is a question of transparency, which is fundamental
to this issue however I would also add that there is a need for clarity on how
data from this type of surveillance is to interpreted. It is easy to become
focussed on the technicalities of drones, whilst at the same time forgetting that
they are a tool, and like any tool they can be poorly used. Like any surveillance
system, it is ultimately our interpretation and usage of the data that determines
its morality.
References:
Završnik, A 2016, Drones
and unmanned aerial systems : legal and social implications for security and
surveillance, Cham : Springer, retrieved 26 August 2016, DEAKIN UNIV
LIBRARY's Catalog, EBSCOhost.
Villasenor, J 2014, '“Drones” and the Future of Domestic
Aviation', Proceedings of the IEEE, vol. 102, no. 3, pp. 235-238.
West, JP, & Bowman, JS 2016, 'The Domestic Use of
Drones: An Ethical Analysis of Surveillance Issues', Public Administration Review, vol. 76, no. 4, pp. 649-659.
0 comments:
Post a Comment