The department says the operators of its new drones are constantly weighing privacy concerns
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Drones over Vancouver capture sunset views for tourists and property listings for real estate agents.
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Now they’re increasingly flying for police in varied — and automated — ways, even launching themselves once an officer sends a signal.
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Legal experts say the law hasn’t kept pace, raising questions the courts and lawmakers haven’t yet answered.
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The Vancouver Police Department has used drones for years, typically piloted by hand on a case-by-case basis. This month, the department announced it has added a new set of drones to its arsenal — ones that can act as first responders and fly to scenes on their own, but can then be operated under a pilot’s direction and record images only when a pilot activates the camera.
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The VPD says six Skydio X10 drones now sit in weatherproof pods on rooftops around the city.
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Sunrise
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The force describes the drones mainly as a tool for emergency response. In its announcement, the department gave two examples. In one, an officer who is being assaulted taps their body camera three times to automatically send a drone to their location. In another scenario, a pilot directs a drone to a crime in progress so it arrives first, streaming video to responding officers and the department’s command centre, which can help officers pursue suspects.
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Kyla Lee, a Vancouver criminal defence lawyer, said she expects the use of the drones to expand over time.
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“If there’s not a clear guideline in place, when police get the power to do something, they’re going to incrementally use it more and more until they hit a point at which they’re told to stop,” Lee said. “It’s just how it happens.”
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She estimated that in 18 months to two years, VPD use of the drones will go beyond what the department currently describes.
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Lee’s analysis centres on a part of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms that protects people from unreasonable search.
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Police generally need a warrant, a judge’s advance authorization, before a search. Lee said that includes situations where a drone could see things an ordinary person on the street couldn’t, like the inside of a backyard, or a view through a high window that would otherwise require, as she put it, “push(ing) your hands up against the glass.”
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“If they were to use it to surveil anything that couldn’t be seen from standing on a street corner … that would be a specific type of surveillance that they would need a warrant for,” she said.
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Lee said that, to her knowledge, no Canadian appeals court has ruled on police drone use, so it’s unclear how a case like this would play out. She said that even if a court later decided police went too far, the footage might still be allowed as evidence if police could show they genuinely believed they were following the law at the time.
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She said B.C. should pass legislation to govern police drone use, rather than leaving individual departments to set their own rules.
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“Leaving police to their own oversight usually leads to results that are not as consistent with the Charter as they could be,” she said.
