The Government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) has authorized an Rs. 500 million project for the use of drone technology in modern policing.
Chief Minister (CM) Mahmood Khan approved the project on Wednesday while presiding over a meeting for the usage of drone technology in policing as well as agriculture and mining.
The meeting was attended by the Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA), Chief Secretary, Dr. Shahzad Bangash, the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Moazzam Jah Ansari, the Additional Secretary, and other administrative secretaries.
The CM instructed the concerned authorities to ensure that the required parameters are met within 15 days. He also informed the officials at the meeting that the project will first be implemented in the police departments and for the operation of the Provincial Disaster Management Authority before it is extended to other sectors, such as agriculture and mining. It was also revealed that the drone technology will initially be used in the divisional headquarters.
CM Khan further expressed his optimism that the project will improve the operational and investigative abilities of the police departments. The CM added that the use of drones will additionally improve rescue operations, and will be an important milestone in modern policing.
The use of drones for patrolling will decrease workloads besides improving work efficiency and productivity and is expected to increase accuracy and prevent security threats through the simultaneous monitoring of vast areas.
keep draining blood of working class of pakistan…
Hopefully, the contracts were given to local manufacturers, if we have any. And second, making good use of facial and image recognition software would improve our security, dramatically. Missing children, wanted criminals or simply lost family members can all be found within seconds. This system is already in place in many countries, for close to a decade. We haven’t moved past “geo-fencing”. There would be privacy concerns with its use, however. We, also barely use the crimes-related data that is published every year for any meaningful purpose, such as reducing crimes in the future. Machines can be trained using this data (machine learning). Then, a process called predictive analytics, which uses algorithms that are linked to that trained data, could predict the likelihood of an individual becoming a repeat offender or if existing repeat offenders could likely commit the same, or different crimes. Having this information doesn’t justify preemptive measures but makes patrolling more cost-effective, primarily in neighborhoods, where such individuals may be socially active. The best “use case” could be street crimes in Pakistan’s largest city. If we continue to go down the path we’re on, where we barely drafted legislation to use CCTV footage as admissible evidence, we would either have a populace armed to the teeth like in Karachi again, where there are more private guards than the police or we’ll become like South Africa. Speaking of which, Chappie was based in South Africa, and places like Dubai plan to have a significant robotic police force soon. They already use them for parking. Karachi, which again seems like an example of complete lawlessness, has parking gangs that no one needs any details about. Everyone in Pakistan knows. We’re doing relatively better when it comes to the use of technology in defence (except space) but in terms of policing, we’re not even in the 21st century. There are huge opportunities for entrepreneurs, startups and even existing factories to assemble or manufacture products like the drones mentioned in the article. There are smart glasses, body cameras, motorbikes, etc. The last time we tried it, the benefactors of our corrupt politicians, who stay in power thanks to a corrupt police, linked this to terrorism. They conducted false flag ops, where terrorists had body cams, to connect any use of technology for the purpose of improving our policing, with asymmetrical warfare. Their ability (or the lack thereof) to combat terrorism themselves, notwithstanding. And of course, I refer to actual terrorism and not framing innocent people with foreign sounding names at home. The point simply is that our domestic security needs aren’t being met. With WW3 almost here, that may or may not be keeping agents of chaos and instability occupied, right now would be the best time to use technology to improve our policing. The rest is simply depoliticizing the LEAs and of course, legislation. We’ve already made progress in that domain under the previous law minister. Let’s discuss more ways, where through legislation, we can improve the lives of our citizens and enter the 21st century.