Police Move to Deploy Drones in San Francisco Bay Area Provokes Backlash

An attempt to deploy drones over the San Francisco Bay Area has been met with opposition from activists over privacy concerns. As of November 2013, 80 law enforcement agencies have used drones across the United States.

MOSCOW, January 13 (Sputnik) — A move by police agencies to deploy drones in the San Francisco Bay Area has been met with opposition from activists and local leaders over privacy concerns, Bloomberg Businessweek magazine reported Tuesday.

“Berkeley and the Bay Area have a long history of political discussion, protests and debate, and there’s a real concern around the use of these drones under those circumstances, and the broader privacy issues,” Berkeley city council member Jesse Arreguin, was quoted as saying by the media.

While a supervisor at the Santa Clara county of California told Bloomberg people did not trust that the authorities would not misuse the drones.

“For any agency or department of the government at any level to simply say ’trust us, we can be counted on not to abuse the technology’ — that’s just not going to fly,” he said.

A year ago, California’s San Jose Police Department became the first law enforcement agency to acquire a drone in the Bay Area. In December 2014, Alameda County Sheriff Gregory Ahern announced that he had bought two drones from the county's budget.

Both San Jose police and the Alameda County sheriff's office need to apply for Federal Aviation Administration approval to fly their drones.

According to Bloomberg, 80 law enforcement agencies have used drones across the United States as of November 2013, the latest data available. Authorities claim the use of drones is for search and rescue missions and disaster response, but residents fear that drones allow authorities to spy on their private lives.