Boletín
Nº 185 - Abril 2018
24/04/18
Do no harm:
A code to guide use of humanitarian drones
Hand launching of Conservation Drone Copyright:
Wikipedia
Speed read
·
Data protection a concern
·
AI can help
distinguish drones in conflict situations
·
Communities
need to be informed ahead of time
By: Sandy
Ong
[SINGAPORE] Joel Kaiser
arrived in Nepal just after the deadliest disaster to hit the Himalayan country. It was late in
April 2015; two major earthquakes had killed nearly 9,000 people and injured
close to 17,000 more. Kaiser, a seasoned humanitarian and emergency response
specialist, was trying to figure out how to get emergency supplies to villagers
in a tiny hamlet high up in the mountains.
"There was only one road,
and it was very steep on either side," recalls Kaiser from WeRobotics, a not-for-profit organisation dedicated to
providing humanitarian aid, social development, and environmental protection through the use of robotics. Relief distribution had to be done on that road, and the team was thinking ahead to the
risks in case large crowds showed up. "So we wanted to make a map of the
village just in case we had some sort of security problem."
To make the map, Kaiser and
his team from AidRobotics — a WeRobotics’ programme
that focuses on disaster response — would use a small drone they had brought
with them to Nepal. They needed roughly 20 minutes to fly the drone over the
village to snap some pictures. But first, they needed
the mayor’s permission.
It’s important to reach out to the local community
before flying unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) overhead, says Kaiser, even when
time is of the essence.
Engaging the community is
one guiding principle, along with 14 others, that form the Humanitarian UAV Code of Conduct — a set of guidelines established in 2014 that "informs the safe,
responsible, and effective use" of drones in humanitarian settings.
The past five years have
seen humanitarian organisations increasingly embrace UAV usagein their work. Because they
are small, lightweight and can be remotely operated,
drones have many useful applications. Most often, they are used to map out
disaster-affected areas, providing aerial images that are much more detailed
than those taken by satellites. Drones are also deployed to help with search and rescue efforts,
for monitoring and surveillance, and to deliver food, medical supplies, and
other small cargo.
"Because laws in many countries around drones are uncertain or unstable,
it’s still really unclear where drones used for emergency response purposes
legally stand — how that pertains to property rights, licensing,
and so on,"
Faine Greenwood
In late
2015, a survey of close to 200 humanitarian
aid workers found that 60 per cent believed drones could help their work. However, 86 per cent felt clearer guidelines and rules were needed.
A code is born
A couple of years
earlier, Patrick Meier found himself sharing
the same sentiment. It
was November 2013 and Meier, WeRobotics’ co-founder
and an expert in humanitarian technologies, was in the Philippines aiding the
UN relief effort following Typhoon Haiyan.
There, he encountered
an unprecedented scenario. "In no other disaster beforehand had there been
any drone team that I had
come across, let alone half a dozen
in the space of a week," recalls Meier.
"But I soon
realised that the teams weren’t
quite sure how to share imagery with governments,
let alone humanitarians and the local community," he says. Wanting to help, Meier spent an
evening Google-searching codes of conduct and best practices for drone use following
a disaster. "Much to my alarm, I didn’t
find anything. And I was very concerned
because clearly this wasn’t just
going to be a one-off," says Meier.
When he got
back home, he founded the Humanitarian UAViators Network as
a platform to discuss best practices in the field — and drafting a code of conduct was the
first order of business.
The code
was officially launched in March 2014, and its website went
live after a workshop Meier organised at the Rockefeller Foundation's Bellagio Center in Italy. Since then, it
has been revised several times following consultation with humanitarian organisations such as the American Red Cross, Doctors Without Borders (MSF-Medicins Sans Frontières), and the World Bank.
Among its
recommendations, the code calls for
drone operators to respect universal humanitarian principles such as impartiality, to prioritise
safety above all else, to be sensitive to conflict, and to collect, use and
store data responsibly. It also emphasises building trust with local communities by taking the time to explain projects and share flight plans with
them.
"I think a standardised
code of conduct is absolutely essential
because without one, basically anyone with a drone
could call themselves a disaster responder,
and that’s really dangerous and problematic," says Faine Greenwood
from the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, where she studies
the use of UAVs and satellites in humanitarian situations.
Greenwood cites past incidences where well-meaning but untrained drone
operators failed to coordinate with flight controllers, making it difficult
for manned aircraft to fly. In some cases people on the ground
were angered or frightened because
they weren’t informed of what was going on
beforehand.
Earlier this
month, Amrita Lal, WeRobotics’ Pacific Flying Labs coordinator, was working with
the Red Cross in Fiji to help survey damage
to houses following Cyclone Keni. She
avoided taking aerial shots of one village in particular because it was
close to the airport and photographing it "needed special
permission from the airmen, and there just wasn’t
time to get it". The code is
never far from her mind
when she works. "[It] makes
sure that people are not doing whatever they want," Lal
says.
Uttam Pudasaini
saw this disregard for flying
over restricted areas first hand.
In the weeks following the 2015 earthquakes, Pudasaini, the coordinator of WeRobotics’ Nepal
Flying Lab, witnessed how operators
would fly their drones over the capital’s seven
World Heritage Sites without government
permission.
The next
frontiers
What he would
like to see, however, is the
code becoming better integrated with country-level regulations.
"That is
the number one challenge," agrees Harvard’s Greenwood. "Because laws in many countries
around drones are uncertain
or unstable, it’s still really
unclear where drones used for emergency
response purposes legally
stand — how that pertains to property rights, licensing, and so on."
Another pressing concern at the forefront of practitioners’ minds is data protection.
Incorporated into the code in 2015, privacy guidelines currently recommend things like collecting
informed consent where possible, having a data management plan,
and using blurring and other technologies to protect those photographed.
But there’s
room to do more. "There’s a
whole range of things to consider," says Sanjana Hattotuwa,
special advisor to the ICT4Peace Foundation — things like what imagery
is being gathered, how it
is used, who has access to it, how it
is retained and for how long,
he says.
Meier, the
code’s creator, is acutely aware
of data privacy and protection issues. He’s made
the topic a priority for next
month’s meeting in
Boston, where experts will gather to discuss how to update the code.
"Let’s not wait for our
Facebook moment," he says.
The next
"big frontier" for the code
is how to use drones in conflict environments, says Greenwood. "Humanitarian law is really unclear
on the context
of telling small drones apart from one
another in the air," she explains. "This means you
could have situations where a humanitarian, a reporter or a member of ISIS are all flying identical
consumer drones."
Something
else that needs to be worked into future versions is how to use machine
learning and artificial intelligence (AI) to process the large amount of data that’s collected with drones.
There’s a certain
inevitability to seeing
more drones being used in humanitarian work as drone technology, both hardware and software, evolves
in the coming years, says Kaiser.
He hopes that more information
means better decision-making and more lives saved. And he hopes that "one day drones will become a go-to
solution for a lot of humanitarian decision-makers".
This article was supported by The
Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center. For nearly 60 years the Bellagio Center has supported individuals working to improve the lives of poor
and vulnerable people globally
through its conference and residency programs, and has served as a catalyst for transformative
ideas, initiatives, and collaborations.
Once a
year, the Bellagio Center hosts a special thematic residency bringing together
a cohort of scholars, practitioners, and artists whose work connects to a
common theme. In 2018, the residency will take place from November 5-30, and will be centered on the theme Science for
Development.
Applications for practitioner
residencies are
now open and applications for academic writing residencies open March 1. To register
your interest, please email: bellagio_ny@rockfound.org
with "Science for Development" as the subject line.