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The Community Review Board on Monday night heard a staff report on the Metro Nashville Police Department’s drone as a first responder program.
Senior research analyst Ansley Potter explained that three drones are based on top of the Madison precinct and are used within a two-mile radius. Pilots at the department’s Community Safety Center decide whether to deploy them in response to 911 calls in the area and provide footage to responding officers.
The drones stream live video to their pilots and record it as well. Recorded footage is treated like any other evidence and deleted after seven days if it’s not being used in a criminal case. They’re also equipped with thermal cameras and can zoom enough to read a license plate from 800 feet.
Potter told the board that Metro’s existing policies explicitly prohibit equipping the drones with weapons, facial recognition technology or using them as license plate readers.
The current pilot program will run until the MNPD completes 45 flight days. As of July 21, the department told the Banner they had completed 18 flight days so far.
Earlier this month, two robbery suspects were arrested after assistance from drones according to the department. At the same time, community advocates have raised concerns about privacy and transparency around the department’s use of drones.
This article first appeared on Nashville Banner and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
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