Police to use 'unmanned aircraft' drones to photograph crash and crime scenes in Illinois

The Federal Aviation Administration approves usage.

The Illinois State Police was given approval by the Federal Aviation Administration to use drones to capture scenes of crash and crime. The "Unmanned Aircraft System" (UAS) program by the state police was announced as federally authorized, Friday. However, the term "drone" is to be avoided for tagging along with the new system.

MUNTINLUPA, PHILIPPINES (Catholic Online) - The agency said that the term "drone" will not be used because "it carries the perception of pre-programmed or automatic flight patterns, and random, indiscriminate collection of images and information," according to the Daily Mail.

It was also clarified during the announcement that the program is initiated not to do surveillance but to do aerial photography of the crime and incident scenes for faster investigations, cutting down the highway time.

Use of the unmanned aircraft is efficient, having "the ability to obtain accurate measurements and clear images from aerial photographs will significantly reduce the amount of time highways are closed during the initial investigation of major traffic crashes," said the state police department, quoted from Ars Technica.

To ensure no privacy rights will be violated, the Illinois State Police explained that they worked with lawmakers and civil rights group in preparation of the system.

However, the UAS is only approved to be used in definite situations, such as with natural disasters, public health emergencies, finding missing persons, photographing crime and crash scenes, or in special circumstances like identifying risk of terrorism as deemed by the Department of Homeland Security.  

On the absence of such situations, UAS cannot be used in private properties unless a search warrant is obtained.

All information gathered using the unmanned aircraft will be destroyed after 30 days and must not be exposed unless needed in an ongoing investigation or a reasonable suspicion arises that the data contain evidence/s of any criminal activity.

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