Police used a drone to surveil thousands of people attending the Electric Ave music festival in Christchurch earlier this year, 1News can reveal.
The drone operated as an “eye in the sky”, hovering at a fixed point a few hundred metres away from the festival.
A live feed was sent to police on the ground and – thanks to a powerful camera lens – officers were able to zoom in on the crowd, monitoring any potential criminal activity.
The public were not warned in advance. News of its use is only being revealed now through an Official Information Act (OIA) request, sent by 1News to police, seeking details of the deployment.
In response to the OIA request, police have released footage its officers recorded on the day, including several examples of revellers being apprehended by security and police. In one of the clips, security guards can be seen pinning a man to the ground, and throwing him out of the event.
Further surveillance continued at night, with police using the thermal capabilities on the camera to track where people were.
Police have said it was primarily used to track potential disorder and assaults. However emails and documents obtained through the OIA show they were also keeping an eye on “fence jumpers”, as well as potential drug activity, with the drone team “monitoring the sale and supply of controlled drugs”.
The deployment was carried out without a warrant, because one is not needed at large gatherings. Police instead relied on public filming rules.
It initially caused concern for the festival organiser, Callam Mitchell, who emailed police flagging that attendees had not been warned about the drone, the emails show.
“We can’t agree to it for privacy reasons, but we nonetheless respect and appreciate it will be happening,” he said.
“In future years we will need to make sure it is included in our terms and conditions prior to tickets going on sale.”
However, Mitchell has since had a change of heart after seeing how the drone operated at the event, and described it as a “great thing” in an interview with 1News.
“Don’t view a drone in the sky as big brother watching,” he said.
“They’re not there to pick on the end user having a good time and partying with their mates, they’re there to make sure everyone’s safe.”
That was echoed by inspector Darren Russell at Police National Headquarters, who described drones as a “game changing” tool for police.
“We don’t do that in a secretive way, it’s really clear where we’re launching from and landing to, and certainly people will be aware that we are using them”, he said.
Most of the time the drone was only streaming the video back to officers on the ground. Footage was only recorded and kept if police suspected an offence may be about to take place.
“It’s very hard for police to be everywhere, so it does enable our teams on the ground to be able to respond directly to anything that may be occurring,” Russell said.
‘Likely to become more commonplace’
Emails obtained through the OIA indicate police are planning to expand their use of drones into even more scenarios – including protests.
An email sent by Sergeant Dave Robertson, of the Canterbury Alcohol Harm Reduction Unit, shows just how quickly police are adopting the tool.
“As the technology improves, and Police resources in that regard grow, it is likely to become more commonplace,” Sgt Robertson said in January.
“We are hopeful that the practical use of drones at events may lead to a reduction in the number of Police staff we need to roster/commit to large scale public events.”
Sgt Robertson also confirmed that drones can be used in several other settings, including “protest activity, gang events, or outdoor concerts / festivals”.
Two other examples of where drones were had been used in Canterbury were redacted under the OIA.
Police can also use drones to surveil people’s property but this typically requires a specific warrant, known as a Surveillance Device Warrant.
However, they are regularly being used at short notice, and without a warrant, to help police in dangerous high-risk situations according to Inspector Russell.
He provided a demonstration of a smaller tactical drone being used inside a house, showing off its ability to fly in through a window and film under beds, inside closets and enter every room of the property.
This smaller tactical drone was primarily used to respond to high-risk offending, such as someone wielding a gun or in a hostage situation.
“The public seem to accept that and would expect us to use these tools where they are available to us, because it is about keeping them safe,” Inspector Russell said.
‘We’ve got to be careful’
The use of the drone at Electric Avenue didn’t cause too much worry for citizen’s rights expert Thomas Beagle, but concern is being raised about where the technology might go in future.
Beagle, of the New Zealand Council for Civil Liberties, believes “the cat’s out of the bag” to some extent on surveillance of this kind, as people are already used to security cameras.
He said there wasn’t a “strong negative” about the drone filming from one fixed point at the festival in this way, and the rules police were following were reasonable.
But he felt it added to the feeling of “being watched”.
“What I don’t like about it is it’s partly just increasing the idea that there’s always cameras watching us, we’re always being watched and tracked and monitored, and it’s just another brick in that wall I guess, of that surveillance society,” he said.
The issue was not what police were doing with drones today, but what they would do in future, he said.
“The problem is that a surveillance society comes on us step by step, it’s not like we’re just going to implement it one day and there it is,” he said.
It raised the question of what would happen if the Government changed and wanted to start “suppressing things”, he said – pointing out this had happened overseas.
“We’ve got to be careful about where we go, and we should be setting limits.”