Have you noticed drones in your neighborhood? One Seattle woman recently found a drone hovering outside of her apartment.
Seattle police are investigating that woman’s report of a drone peeping into her apartment window. Police were called to the downtown Seattle apartment complex on a Sunday in June after she spied an unmanned aerial vehicle (referred to colloquially as a “drone”) hovering outside her building. The woman said she was concerned the drone was looking into her apartment while she was not fully dressed. She did take a photo of the drone as it lurked around her bedroom.
After calling police, an employee in her building went outside and saw two men piloting the drone. They then packed up their gear, which included a video camera, and drove away before police arrived. As it turned out, it was a false alarm. Joe Vaughn, the business owner of Portland-based Skyris imaging, has apologized to the resident and explained that it wasn’t peeping into her home. Vaughn said he called the Seattle Police Department when he saw the media kerfuffle about his drone. He notes that the drone was used to shoot a video for a developer who is building a 20-story office tower and needed a “view” study.
But the incident raises the question: can other people use drones to spy on us, potentially for nefarious reasons?
Drones and what role they should play in society (if any) have been a hot topic in Seattle and around the country for some time. Last year, former Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn ordered the Seattle Police Department to cease the use of surveillance drones to monitor protests and other public events after privacy groups expressed outrage. Public debate has centered around on the government’s use of drones for surveillance and whether this violates a Fourth Amendment right to be free from government spying.
