US startup is testing drones in India to enforce social distancing

US startup is testing drones in India. As countries around the world are gradually reopening following lockdowns, government authorities are using surveillance drones in an attempt to enforce social distancing rules. In India, police are using AI-equipped drones developed by US start-up Skylark Labs to monitor evening curfews and the distance between people who are outside during the day.

Skylark has been supplying monitoring drones to police in over half a dozen Indian cities. The drones are equipped with cameras and AI that can detect humans from up to 1 kilometer (0.62) miles away. When the drone spots a crowd, it alerts police. The drones can also monitor the distance between two or more people to gauge whether they are maintaining the safe social distance of 2 meters (6 feet).

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Skylark‘s focus is on aeial surveys for a variety of tasks, such as monitoring agricultural yields or the progress of construction projects. But like many other companies, it’s expanded to offer COVID-19 related services. US startup is testing drones in India enforce social distancing.

Some firms have also floated the idea of using drones equipped with thermal imaging to identify potentially infected people with fevers. However, the World Health Organization suggests that “temperature screening alone may not be very effective” at detecting covid-19.

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In the UK, Derbyshire Police were criticised for drone footage posted on social media in March, appearing to shame people exercising in the Peak District, even though they were adhering to social distancing guidelines.Drones were also used by Chinese authorities at highway checkpoints in February, when the covid-19 outbreak spread domestically there. To learn more like this visit Easyshiksha.

“Police departments around the world have been looking for a good excuse to begin to acquire and use drones more regularly,” says Matthew Guariglia at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil liberties group based in San Francisco.

Although the public might not mind drones being used for public health purposes, we are concerned that their use may continue long afterwards, says Guariglia. It opens the opportunity for future police surveillance of protests or other large public gatherings, particularly if the drones are equipped with face-recognition systems, he says.

Drones that can recognise and track individuals raise serious privacy concerns, agrees Singh. Skylark Lab’s drones are only able to detect human bodies and can’t pick up any specific facial details, he says. “Every technology needs to be used responsibly,” he says.

Because many of these surveillance technologies are being developed by private companies, it is difficult to know whether any drones currently in use by government authorities for covid-19 monitoring include facial recognition, says Guariglia.

“Drones might be a small part of some kind of recovery effort, but they cannot be a majority of how we invest public health time and resources,” he says. “We cannot surveil and police our way out of an epidemic.”

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