Why Community Trust is Crucial for a Successful Drone Program
Drone as First Responder (DFR) programs represent one of the most promising advances in Public Safety in decades. The shorter response times and heightened situational awareness that drones provide have already helped First Responders save countless lives and respond more efficiently to emergencies. However, even the most sophisticated and fleshed out drone program can fail if trust between Public Safety agencies and their communities is lacking.
Community trust is not just something to tick off on a DFR readiness checklist— it is the foundation on which your drone program sits. How the community feels about your proposed DFR framework has the power to determine whether or not your program makes it through potential controversy, secures consistent funding, and earns ongoing support and cooperation that these programs require.
Transparency Before Launch
Transparency should not be a reactive measure, but a necessary action taken before the program’s launch. Your community deserves to understand not only the intentions of the proposed drone program, but how the drones function, what data they collect, how that data is handled, and by what metrics the drone program will be deemed successful.
Before your first flight, hold public meetings and attend city council meetings to inform your community about the proposed DFR program. Be sure to publish policies and plans for the program in plain language that anyone can understand, staying away from any complex legal jargon or technical terms. This is not to say that the more nitty gritty information should be left out, but instead adapted to make it accessible for everyone. Share this information through the channels your agency regularly uses to communicate with the public and make an unmistakable effort to inform citizens about the drone program ahead of launch.
Potentially the most important information to include in these resources are the data retention and privacy policies. Your agency should have a comprehensive plan regarding how this sensitive information is handled along with when, where, and what a drone can record video. Many people will be on board with a drone arriving at a scene faster than a patrol car or firetruck, but fewer will feel comfortable if they believe footage of their property is being stored indefinitely in a database they cannot access or appeal to.
Address Privacy Concerns Before They Appear
Privacy is the single most common concern raised by citizens when a municipality is implementing a DFR program. It is the job of the agency that will be using drones to inform its citizens accurately and minimize the spread of misinformation surrounding the topic. By ignoring concerns, offering vague reassurances, or outright denying the possibility of any potential privacy mishaps, you will lose goodwill and trust with the community that your program is supposed to serve.
Clear policies about what footage is retained, who can access it, and how the program complies with federal and state regulations is invaluable for informing citizens of their rights and what a drone will or will not do, while public meetings can open the conversation to address any further issues.
To help ease concerns, consider creating a citizen advisory committee with voices from local advocacy groups, civil liberties organizations, and any community member who wants to be involved. The buy-in from these parties can signal to the community at large that the program has been scrutinized by groups with real accountability to residents, not just administrators with budgets at the top of mind.
Show Honest Outcomes
DFR data is a great tool to show a community the objective benefits of drones within their community. Oftentimes, agencies will opt to publish consistent reports about how the program is performing: how many incidents it has responded to, how much quicker it has been arriving than ground units, what types of calls it can support, and what the operational outcomes have been. When DFR helps to save a life, contain a fire, or find a missing person, share the success if appropriate. Real outcomes are the strongest argument for garnering community support and can help residents understand the reason drones have been implemented in the first place: to help keep them safe.
At the same time, do not neglect to share failures or limitations of the drone program. Full transparency must report situations in which the drone only provided limited value, hardware or software malfunctioned, or a citizen complaint was filed and addressed. Curating a DFR highlight reel, while impressive, does not give citizens a full picture of how drones are functioning in their community, and can lead to decreased support if people feel they are being pandered to. Honest, balanced, and consistent reporting is the best way to develop confidence between agencies and those they protect.
Continuous Engagement
A common mistake that Public Safety agencies make is failing to provide updates after the initial launch of a drone program. Conversations that shape the public opinion of your drone program are happening continuously among a wide range of demographics in social media groups, town meetings, and conversations among neighbors. If your agency is not a part of these conversations, others are filling in the gaps and may develop an inaccurate or outright harmful narrative surrounding DFR.
To get ahead of this, designate a community liaison specifically for your drone program that stays engaged with the community and can provide clear answers and information surrounding DFR operations. Host monthly forums to answer questions and provide updates to interested community members, and engage with local schools and civic groups to educate residents on the technology and protocol in place surrounding your agency’s drone operations. The more familiar your community becomes with DFR, the easier it will be to dispel misinformation and keep everyone on the same page. Additionally, it is important to engage with all parts of your municipality equally. Residents in higher-crime areas, where DFR deployments will be more visible and frequent, deserve the most thorough engagement and care as the program will affect their neighborhoods the most.
The Bottom Line
At the end of the day, DFR should be used to serve communities and the people who First Responders have sworn to protect. Part of this service means transparent and proactive communication with citizens to build trust and confidence in the drone program. This trust is the determining factor for whether or not your program will be a long-term, continuously improved and community-backed operation, or a short-lived trial run.
Building this trust does not happen overnight. Consistent, accurate reporting, community engagement, and accessible information are all necessary to gain support leading up to and following the implementation of DFR in your agency. From that point on, with each drone deployment, all proposed protocol and operations must be followed to a T. This means always taking complaints seriously and never using DFR in a way that surpasses your community's expectations. Always remember that the ability to fly over people’s homes and businesses is a privilege and should be treated as such— as quickly as a drone program is approved, it can also be shut down if pushback outweighs the benefits.
If you are considering DFR, you already know that it has the potential to transform Emergency Response, but it is even more important that your community believes in this mission alongside you. Start the conversation early, keep it honest, and you will be able to build something more durable than just a drone program, but a partnership with residents with the mutual understanding that drones can be used for good.
To speak with our DFR experts and learn more about how drones can serve your community, book a demo with Paladin today.
