In the long term, expect government surveillance to increase, and laws put in place to restrict private surveillance. They’ll probably never stop private CCTV cameras, or people taking videos of what they see in public. But vehicles are a different matter, because they need to be licensed, which means the government controls them.
After the success of drones (unmanned aerial vehicles) in military operations, the next logical step is for them to be used domestically. And they are, as described at Wikipedia:
Although UAVs are today most commonly associated with military actions, UAVs are increasingly being used by civilian government agencies, businesses, and private individuals. In the United States, for example, civilian law enforcement agencies use drones to patrol the nation’s borders, scout property, and hunt down fugitives. One of the first authorized for domestic usage was the ShadowHawk UAV in service in Montgomery County, Texas and is being used by their SWAT and emergency management offices. UAVs can be powerful surveillance tools, capable of carrying face recognition systems, license plate scanners, thermal imaging cameras, open WiFi sniffers, and other sensors. However, individuals in the United States have few legal privacy protections from aerial surveillance conducted through UAVs. In Katz v. United States, the United States Supreme Court declared individuals have no “expectation of privacy” in public places. In Florida v. Riley, the United States Supreme Court held that individuals on their own, private property do not have right to privacy from police observation from public airspace. The weakness of legal protection from UAV surveillance have led to calls from civil liberties advocacy groups for the U.S. government to issue laws and regulations that establish both privacy protections and greater transparency regarding the use of UAVs to gather information about individuals.
A recent article at End the Lie brings up some interesting points:
- Legislation is being introduced to integrate drones into the National Airspace System, as well as implementing means of tracking them. That means permitting unmanned drones controlled by remote operators on the ground to fly in the same airspace as airliners, cargo planes, business jets and private aircraft.
- Air Force drones might be passing on what they have “inadvertently captured” to other government bodies.
- Police departments are evaluating whether drones can help them, and drone manufacturers are courting them
- Jaywalking is illegal in most places. Could countering jaywalking be a legitimate use of a police drone? Or what about speeding? Could they follow cars they suspect might speed?
There will be four aspects that determine the future of such surveillance, in a way that might bother ordinary, law-abiding citizens:
1. Cost. The authorities can use real people and equipment to spy on you on the ground. But is isn’t cheap, so they save those abilities for fighting crime rather than just random spying. However there must be a price point at which the government decides that random spying is worthwhile. So as drones become cheaper, and their deployment becomes more automated, we have increased risk to citizens
2. Harassment Laws. While the police could have an officer follow you everywhere you go, without a reasonable and legal cause you could sue them for harassment. It will be interesting how this plays out regarding drones. Because they are so high up, it’s impossible to tell if it is you they are targeting. Especially when they don’t have to be directly above you to watch you. And as soon as someone successfully proves that a single drone was tracking just them, the government will start deploying multiple drones that take turns watching you.
3. Detectability. At some point drones will become small enough, and be able to watch us from far enough away, that we won’t know when they are there and when they aren’t. Just like existing satellite imagery.
4. Private Drones Made Illegal (unless licensed). The other side of the coin is that there are open air events that the government and individuals would like to keep private. A celebrity wedding for example, or Area 51. I expect that ultimately all privately-owned, remotely-operated flying craft will be made illegal unless licensed – effectively keeping them out of the hands of anyone unless the government like you. The media will probably be allowed to use drones, but only if they already have their own helicopters. And there will certainly be legitimate private uses, such as crop dusting and aerial still photography, business which already exist using manned aircraft.
At present the private use of drones is limited to hobbyists, and they have to keep their drones below 400 feet and within their line of sight. As technology improves, this will become impossible to enforce, so expect a blanket ban.
Because of the difficulty in determining who is operating a drone, illegal private drones will exist. Which means we will have police drones that hunt and disable illegal drones…
How To Protect Yourself:
- Don’t be identifiable from above. A veil might look odd unless you are a Muslim woman, but in the future it could become commonplace (unless made illegal).
- Travel and meet at night.
- Use non-licensed transport such as a bicycle, or public transport that cannot be connected with you specifically.
- Conduct meeting with others undercover, and either get there without being detected, or meet in a very busy place where there are no cameras – like the toilets at a baseball game.
- I can envision privacy advocates owning large buildings full of private meeting rooms. Outside surveillance cannot prove that certain people were meeting if hundreds of others are entering and leaving the same building every hour. This could be incorporated into existing business models like ServCorp.
