Unmanned planes to spy on Britons

The Government is planning to introduce unmanned planes to spy on the British public. The MoD is working alongside BAE Systems to make the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (or “UAVs”) to make an aircraft safe enough to operate on police service in the UK.

The aircraft are able to take clear photos of the ground from as high as 50,000 feet. They are widely used by British forces in Iraq and Afghanistan but so far have not been used for civilian work in the UK.

If the UAV gets approval, it could be used for crowd control, anti-terror surveillance, maritime searching and in a support role for emergency services and intelligence services.

In another BAE project, technology is being developed that will take control away from air traffic controllers and effectively allow the spy planes to make their own decisions.

And what happens if this all goes wrong? Unmanned planes crashing onto urban areas because the plane was able to make its own decisions, then developed a fault and no one was able to prevent a crash?

As well as this being another example of Big Brother Britain, the potential for disaster is enormous.