BART police want drones to heighten surveillance of tracks and parking lots

By Rachel Swan | San Francisco Chronicle (TNS)

OAKLAND, CALIF. — BART police have proposed adding a drone to their arsenal of specialized military equipment, saying it would hasten emergency response times and improve their surveillance of parking lots and other facilities within the transit system.

“Drones deliver a vital aerial perspective while providing situational awareness and improving officer safety,” representatives of the police department wrote in a surveillance impact report submitted to BART’s Board of Directors, which is expected to vote on whether to approve the request on Oct. 8.

It comes at a moment when law enforcement is rapidly embracing drone technology, prompting privacy concerns and anxiety that these machines have proliferated too fast to develop coherent rules governing their use. BART’s policy allows drones to be deployed for policing, search and rescue, crowd control, public relations, safety inspections and engineering projects, among other activities, while forbidding generalized surveillance, harassment, violations of the Fourth Amendment or other laws, and operation for “personal business.”

Police have pitched their drone program as a 180-day pilot with no cost to the agency, because a vendor would loan the devices to BART “on a trial basis for review,” said spokesperson Chris Filippi.

“No decision has yet been made on whether to buy any drone equipment,” Filippi said.

The unmanned aircraft would either fly a preprogrammed route or operate via a remote control, collecting data with cameras and video recording technology to be stored on secure servers, according to the report. It would generally monitor the 3.5 miles of track between Bay Fair and Hayward stations, where infrastructure has been vandalized and thieves have stripped out parts, the report said.

Besides deterring or investigating crime, drones could help prevent damage and automate safety inspections so passengers are less likely to face delays, police said in the report. They pledged to create strict guardrails for data collection and storage, storing the information for prescribed time periods and protecting it from cyberattacks.

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