NYPD hopes drones will help it keep NYE party safe

New York police are deploying drones over Times Square amid New Year’s Eve celebrations, hoping the evolving technology could help identify potential attackers and forecast crowd movement.

Assistant Police Commissioner Kaz Daughtry gave a tour of three of the drones being used tonight to monitor Times Square celebrants, saying the devices bring state-of-the-art technology, including real-time 5K monitoring, to the effort to keep New Year’s Eve safe.

Officers on the ground can tune in to drone video via smartphone, Daughtry said, while the aerial robots scan the 1 million-attendee event to detect anomalies in the crowd, medical emergencies and crowd movement.

“We can look for any type of anomalies in the crowd, any suspicious people, any suspicious person,” he said.

The American Civil Liberties Union has long expressed concerns that drones can be used to violate privacy rights and track people, such as police critics, whose messages authorities don’t necessarily want to celebrate.

The police department first used drones to help monitor New Year’s Eve celebrations in 2019, after its planned deployment in 2018 was canceled by rain.