BRINC vice-president for strategy David Benowitz said that while computers changed how the service economy functions, "drones really change how we do work out there." Mining, utilities, public safety and disaster recovery are all activities that were "inherently hard to digitise" but are now much easier because drones can fly ahead, take photos and video, and "collect that information and get people to act on them." In effect, he said, "drones digitise the physical space."
The company also produces a nearly indestructible two-way communication ball that first responders can throw into high-risk locations to communicate with occupants without putting officers at risk.
But the prospect of police departments integrating drones raises questions about privacy and accountability, particularly when combined with facial-recognition software or automatic licence-plate readers (ALPRs), which have already generated a backlash in the United States. Benowitz acknowledged the risk of digital surveillance but argued that BRINC's drones are inherently different from ALPR systems. "ALPR is a persistent surveillance system, in where they're always on, always listening, always checking for things," he said. The drone as first responder, by contrast, is "responding to a call for service and so it's inherently a response tool." You are "only going to see a drone out there if there's a reason for it to be launched."
BRINC has built an automated transparency dashboard that publishes flights to a public site specific to each agency. Anyone can look up a flight, see the case number, who flew it, when, and who had access to the footage. Benowitz said a member of the public who saw a BRINC drone flying could find the agency and flight online and then submit a freedom of information request. The cameras on BRINC drones are horizon-facing while flying to a scene, so they do not scan people's back gardens or uncovered patios en route.
In Australia, law enforcement has already embraced drones. Western Australia Police use a variety of models from China's DJI. Surf Life Saving NSW deploys drones for shark patrols using a "drone in a box" system. Country Fire Authority Victoria uses drones for bushfire monitoring. The NSW PolAir-Remote trial has seen drones controlled 500 kilometres away in Bankstown used to track suspects in the regional town of Moree, including a man wanted for an alleged machete attack. The trial has raised fears of surveillance in the community.
The global drone market is dominated by China-based DJI, which controls 80 to 90 per cent of the market according to the Centre for European Policy Analysis. Swinburne University senior lecturer in aviation Adetokunbo Arogbonlo said DJI is the major brand used by law enforcement "by a long mile." While there are some Australian-built drones, the barriers are cost and complexity compared with DJI's ease of use. Arogbonlo noted that DJI drones "are known to upload a lot of data back home" and said that while there are "privacy implications, they can be managed with careful planning and judicious operators." DJI has long rejected concerns about data security and national security risks, saying those concerns have "not been grounded in evidence and instead reflect protectionism."
The United States has blocked the import and sale of new DJI drones, reportedly for national security reasons. The move is expected to encourage the growth of a domestic US drone industry. BRINC, founded in 2017 by Blake Resnick and now employing 230 people across four sites in the Seattle area, is among those racing to fill demand. Benowitz said that simply building competitive drones is insufficient: "We have to also build the supply chain because it doesn't exist here." He described a global splitting of supply chains between China and the West, with new capabilities being built up in America and elsewhere in the Western world.