The police service of Kingston, Ontario has recently come under fire for its use of surveillance drones in order to ticket distracted drivers. It is a practice whose constitutional validity has been questioned by lawyers, and some residents find it to be an unacceptable invasion of privacy. However, it has its defenders - including myself.
The police have been piloting large drones through the skies of Kingston, peering into the windows of cars in order to ensure that drivers are not in violation of traffic laws pertaining to distracted driving. While this sounds like something out of a dystopian novel, it is worth noting that the images captured using the drones are not any different to those captured by speed cameras or red light cameras. Something else is also worth noting: they work.
After one day of using the drones, the police had issued twenty tickets for distracted driving. That represents twenty cases of drivers endangering the community, and that is no exaggeration - I have nearly been hit by distracted drivers more times than I could count, and I have witnessed people being hit by distracted drivers. If drones are the way to crack down on people recklessly endangering the lives of others, then so be it.
Arguments have been made that the use of surveillance drones constitutes an unreasonable invasion of privacy, and I would agree were the drones being used to record the contents of the phone screen or other occupants of the vehicle. However, they are not being used to do either of those things. One might also argue that any nonconsensual recording of anyone is unacceptable. I would agree in many cases, but when one is driving, they do so in public and on public roads. If recording were prohibited in this case, it would logically follow that security cameras in public places such as courthouses and universities would also be illegal. Driving is a privilege, not a right, and public safety takes priority over the supposed right not to be recorded while driving - something that was thrown out of the window upon the introduction of speed cameras anyway.