The New York City police department plans to pilot the unmanned aircrafts in response to complaints about large gatherings, including private events, over Labor Day weekend, officials announced Thursday.
“If a caller states there’s a large crowd, a large party in a backyard, we’re going to be utilizing our assets to go up and go check on the party,” Kaz Daughtry, the assistant NYPD Commissioner, said at a press conference.
The plan drew immediate backlash from privacy and civil liberties advocates, raising questions about whether such drone use violated existing laws for police surveillance.
“It’s a troubling announcement and it flies in the face of the POST Act,” said Daniel Schwarz, a privacy and technology strategist at the New York Civil Liberties Union, referring to a 2020 city law that requires the NYPD to disclose its surveillance tactics. “Deploying drones in this way is a sci-fi inspired scenario.”
The definitional boundary is where navigable airspace begins. You do own the non-navigable airspace above your property and you would have a trespassing argument if a drone entered that area without your permission. Where exactly the boundary is between navigable and non is a bit fuzzy but generally it will be at the highest object in the property eg. a treetop.
I still wouldn’t mess with the drone though, as another commenter said interfering with an aircraft of any type is a very serious crime.