The Salt Lake Community Bail Fund investigated the Salt Lake City Police Department’s use of drone surveillance and found that this practice is leading to major violations of constitutional rights through oversurveillance. (By Abadonian iStock/Getty Images Plus)
Recently, police officers in Salt Lake City were granted a 12.5% budget increase in part to further fund their ongoing drone program. This massive budget increase comes directly from taxpayer dollars and further expands the SLCPD’s surveillance capabilities even after a recent news story exposed the SLCPD for taking electricity from Rocky Mountain Power customers in order to operate their street cameras throughout the city. The SLCPD claims to use drone surveillance for limited purposes, such as checking the scenes of accidents or crimes and searching for wanted or missing persons. Notably, they claim that drones are not used to monitor peaceful protests or private property. However, the Salt Lake Community Bail Fund investigated the SLCPD’s use of drone surveillance and found that this practice is leading to major violations of constitutional rights through oversurveillance.
Oversurveillance of unsheltered people
While the police department claims to use drone footage only in areas where alleged crimes have occurred, they fail to disclose that drone cameras also capture footage all along their path to and from each location. This happenstance footage allows the police to unnecessarily pursue more low-level crimes that are rarely enforced due to negligible negative impacts. This oversurveillance disproportionately affects unsheltered people who are already overtargeted by police. With the recent passage of HB0312, Utah can now hold unsheltered people in jail without bail for misdemeanor offenses such as loitering, camping, and riding TRAX without a ticket. Classifying these actions as offenses is an unjust practice known as quality-of-life policing. This type of policing is unjust because it punishes people simply for trying to survive poverty. Quality-of-life policing is also ineffective at reducing homelessness and only makes it harder for unsheltered people to get connected with services that could allow them to eventually find consistent housing.
Misuse of drone footage to target protestors
The Salt Lake City Police Department states that they do not monitor peaceful protests using their drone program. However, this information is inconsistent with recent court cases demonstrating that the SLCPD authorizes drone surveillance of protests simply for things like marching or not having a permit — both of which are First Amendment protected activities that do NOT justify the use of drone surveillance. Across the U.S., records of police departments show police regularly using drone surveillance to locate and arrest protestors in direct violation of First Amendment rights. The use of drone surveillance against protestors is a blatant attempt by the police to silence and intimidate protest movements.
Racist facial recognition
In recent years, police departments have also gained access to facial recognition algorithms which are often utilized in drone surveillance footage, which allows the police to identify potential suspects within their facial recognition database. These facial recognition databases are often constructed from government photographs like driver’s licenses. The algorithms typically lack public transparency and demonstrate regular efficacy and racial bias concerns…