More drones mean less risk for officers, Sudbury police say
Emergency services in northern Ontario are making more use of drone technology in critical situations, and that use is expected to increase in the coming year.
That's an encouraging sign for front-line officers, says Insp. Marc Brunette with Greater Sudbury Police Services (GSPS).
The GSPS even expects to ramp up the number of officers trained to operate the aircraft — or Remotely Piloted Aircraft System (RPAS) — with an eye on increasing the eight-person team to 12 by 2024.
"We've been going strong since the fall of 2020," Brunette said.
"And the program is slowly evolving. Technology is getting more accessible, more affordable and with enhancements of technology we've found some great successes early into the program."
In 2023, for example, Brunette said the GSPS has deployed drones on 34 separate occasions.
So far, drones have been deployed during critical emergencies, search and rescue, lost persons, issuing warrants, tactical operations and traffic accident recreation, Brunette said.
"From an officer safety perspective, when we roll out an integrated response where we have to go into high-risk situations, oftentimes we require a lay of the land or we require an aerial shot of the buildings or the structures," Brunette said.
"Traditionally we put an officer in those positions and now we can deploy the RPAS program and have a glance from a distance."
Const. Jacques Roberge was one of the GSPS's first trained drone pilots, and he's used them in traffic situations, saving hours of road closures while police investigate, or reconstruct, crash scenes.
"You want to be able to grab as much evidence as you can at a scene, because once that scene is released … we can put the vehicles back, but it won't be the same conditions," Roberge said.
"If I took an image from Google Earth, it might have been taken in the summer or might have been taken in the winter. So [drones] give just a true perspective of what we see at the time, and it's the best evidence."
In Moosonee, Volunteer Fire Chief Scott Grant said the use of drones has been a complete "game changer" for the community of 3,000.
"As a council, we decided that if we could save one to three people a year with this drone, then it's certainly well worth the $40,000 up-front fee," Grant said.
"To our surprise, we were all quite shocked that once we had the drone, we didn't realize how often we would actually utilize it. We've gotten to the point where we've used it almost once a month."
In May, volunteer firefighters located a woman — already showing signs of hypothermia — trapped on an ice chunk in the Moose River with the help of a DJI 30 Matrice thermal drone.
Grant said using the drones has been "incredibly helpful" on the wildfire front, too.
"When it came to a large wildland fire we had, it actually reduced our time on scene by probably six hours," he said. "Just because we were able to locate hotspots and we were able to locate where the problem spots were using the thermal camera on the drone.
"Not only is it helping save lives, it's actually reducing our risk, it's reducing our time that we have to spend fighting these things. So it's become an intricate part of our service."
What about privacy laws?
Some have raised concerns about the images and footage that drones collect, especially as it relates to privacy laws.
In May, Ontario's former privacy commissioner, Ann Cavoukian, said the current commissioner should launch a provincewide investigation on how police services are using drones, and programs like the one by Hamilton Police Service should shut down until that's done.
But Brunette said drone operators are governed by the Aeronautics Act and Canadian Aviation Regulations, and his pilots operate within the law.
"Despite being police and despite responding to emergencies, we're still required to comply with those legislative requirements," Brunette said. "As such, with that comes training, and then refresher training, that the pilot has to go through every couple of years.
"No, we're not outside of those rules."