Pamplona (EFE).- Navarra has more than a thousand registered drone operators and an undetermined number of these devices whose use has grown “exponentially” since it is a “versatile” tool for different tasks, including for committing crimes.
To deepen the use of drones, the way to combat possible illegalities and the future that is designed for these unmanned aircraft, the Civil Guard celebrates this Tuesday a technical-training day in which the head of the body in the community, the Colonel José Santiago Martín, has specified that the officially registered operators were 1,027 last year since they are devices with “an expansion to which Navarra is no stranger”.
And he added, after recalling the spaces that have limitations on their use, that the use of drones is also increasingly intensive by the Security Forces and Corps despite the fact that this is “an incipient moment” and therefore its development must be sought “in a safe environment” in legal, economic, physical or cybernetic terms.
In this same sense, Sergeant Eduardo Rodríguez Aizpeolea, from the PEGASO team in Navarra, has commented that the actions of the Civil Guard related to drones have gone from 20-25% in 2019 to more than 60% at present, at the that should be added to the challenge of police forces.
“Exponential growth” of its use by the police
“Exponential growth and we are going much further because the aeronautical regulations are in a process of evolution and the new national drone regulations are about to come out, which will replace the 2017 regulations”, he said. It is, he added, “a complicated world” in which operators try to use it well but not always successfully, since for them it is not their main work tool, since many are the media or farmers.
That is why it has opted for social awareness, although remembering that administrative fines for the improper recreational use of drones can range from 40 to 40,000 euros and if it is for professional use, the penalty would be from 4,500 euros.
Rodríguez has also alluded to the use of these devices to indicate that today they are still small but real in police actions or in rescue and emergency situations, and in a “very incipient” way the delivery of packages or the taxi service is beginning to be developed, without forgetting new “malicious” uses of which some cases have also been detected, such as the delivery of items in prison or flights directed by people with a criminal record near police facilities.
“The threat of the drone is something real” because “it is very easy to use” and it is also a “threat that has accelerated completely with the war in Ukraine,” said Sergeant Josef Fares Martín of the Rapid Action Groups, who He recalled that last year a jihadist was arrested in Barcelona with a drone with explosives to attack a football match.
To ensure security and combat the threat, the GAR can be present both in El Rocío and in Sanfermines if required, however it encounters difficulties because they need for their work, in addition to human resources, technologies that are expensive and that in a short time they are outdated.
For her part, the prosecutor Cruz García has commented that the illegal use of drones, covered by the Criminal Code since there is no specific regulation, ranges from irregular driving to the transport of weapons, drugs, toxic or dangerous substances, the commission of damages in infrastructures or the environment and crimes against privacy and one’s own image.
Finally, “pulling your imagination”, he added, crimes of coercion and harassment, child pornography, discovery and disclosure of secrets, espionage, robbery and damage to property and even poaching can be committed with them.
On the positive side, García has highlighted the usefulness of drones in investigations, surveillance and verification of the state of places, for which in different circumstances judicial authorization will be necessary.