Tony Webster [CC BY-SA 4.0]

California Appellate Courtroom’s Resolution Impacts Public Entry to Police Drone Footage

by DRONELIFE Workers Author Ian J. McNabb

Final week, a California appellate court docket dominated that video footage from police drones collected in response to 911 calls isn’t robotically exempt from public report. The choice by the California Courtroom of Attraction for the Fourth District got here in a response to a journalist’s try to achieve entry to drone footage taken as a part of the Chula Vista Police Division’s “Drones as First Responders” program, the primary of its form within the nation.

After the journalist, Arturo Castañares of La Prensa, sued the division, the trial court docket dominated that Chula Vista police may withhold all footage as a result of the movies have been exempt from disclosure as legislation enforcement investigatory information beneath the California Public Information Act, resulting in an enchantment.

The appellate court docket held that drone footage was not categorically exempt from public disclosure, as drones is likely to be used to answer non-crime occasions that also warranted a 911 name (for instance, a mountain lion roaming a residential road). After they despatched the choice again to trial court docket, they prompt that every particular person video needs to be examined as as to whether a criminal offense really occurred, after which the movies might be launched to the general public following the CPRA on a case-to-case foundation.

This case serves to point out the issue of integrating new applied sciences into current reporting mechanisms, requiring California police departments thinking about DFR applications to kind via their very own footage to make the video of non-criminal 911 responses publicly out there. Nonetheless, the choice was welcomed by many privateness advocates, who argued that the police drone footage needs to be topic to the purview of civilian oversight, like different information generated by legislation enforcement.

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Ian McNabb is a employees author based mostly in Boston, MA. His pursuits embrace geopolitics, rising applied sciences, environmental sustainability, and Boston School sports activities.

Miriam McNabb is the Editor-in-Chief of DRONELIFE and CEO of JobForDrones, an expert drone providers market, and a fascinated observer of the rising drone business and the regulatory setting for drones. Miriam has penned over 3,000 articles centered on the industrial drone house and is a world speaker and acknowledged determine within the business.  Miriam has a level from the College of Chicago and over 20 years of expertise in excessive tech gross sales and advertising for brand new applied sciences.
For drone business consulting or writing, E mail Miriam.

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