From Helmand to Merseyside: Unmanned drones and the militarisation of UK policing

The Merseyside deployment is merely one of the first, tentative step within a much wider push by arms contractors and security and technology corporations. Supported by Governments, these are working extremely hard to ensure that the deployment of aerial drones for policing purposes quickly saturates UK airspace and becomes completely normal and taken for granted. We thus face a pivotal moment in the evolution of civilian surveillance by electronic means, both in the UK and other western democracies. This moment raises four particular concerns.