Canberra Police Want Drones To Track Cars 154
garymortimer tips this story at the Canberra Times, which starts: "Police have suggested that Canberra's new point-to-point speed cameras be linked to unmanned aerial surveillance drones and used to track vehicles of interest to authorities. The first of the cameras, which use automated number plate recognition technology to calculate a car's average speed and whether it is within the legal limit, are due to be switched on by the end of the year." I wonder how much surveillance by drone is already being done in the U.S., especially considering that even an (admittedly high-end) home-built drone is capable of hijinks that seem to parallel the cell-phone tracking activities the FBI has been shown to employ.
Re:Why drones? (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't get why they want to do this with drones... It seems like a less efficient and more expensive method of tracking compared to the satellites they are using now...
My guess would be to have more control of what they can see. Satellites look down, whereas UAV's can reposition themselves rather swiftly and look from numerous angles. The other reason would be more of a psychological one, the bad guys will some times get to see these things and perhaps will think twice, and the fearful citizen might feel like they are now more secure since the watching eye in the sky will somehow be able to protect them better.