De steile opmars van drones en de uitdagingen voor de politie

While defense and police in the Netherlands and Belgium have experimented on a relatively small scale with drones, another problem arises in the meanwhile: the steep rise of civilian drones. Drones were initially developed for military purposes, but soon evolved into a widespread technology that generated a multi-billion industry. Through a brief and descriptive analysis, we want to provide insight into the technological developments and their significance for the police. In this article we provide an overview of existing drones and address the main controversies regarding drones and the explosive growth of the civil drones. Finally, we examine the problem of fragmented legislation around drones. We base this on a recent intervention by the Vice-President of the European Commission, which could be considered as a turning point in the search for a legal framework for the expected billion dollar industry on drones. This, of course, also has consequences for police work in the future, such as controls on the correct use of civilian drones and interventions when accidents with drones occur. In this view, it is important to involve the police sector in the regulation of this new technology because the era of drones is at the door.