ST. GEORGE’S, Grenada, Sept 4, CMC – The Grenada government says it will develop rules and policies pertaining to the use of drones with the guidelines focusing on identifying no fly zones as well as applying drone technology to assist with improving healthcare.
“Drones technology are revolutionizing the world,” said Prime Minister and Minister of National Security, Dickon Mitchell.
He told Parliament that within the national security apparatus, “we have to create the rules and policies to regulate the use of drones and the police itself need to be equipped with drones t, seeking to justify an EC$530,000 (One EC dollar=US$0.37 cents) for the police, told legislators that the funding will be used to purchase law enforcement equipment to assist the police with solving crimes.
“Criminal investigations are prolonged due to the lack of the necessary equipment to do the automated matching of the fingerprints. Also the unlocking of phones for investigative analysis is currently outsourced in Barbados,” said the supplementary budget explanatory notes.
“We need to ensure that we can buy the necessary drones to strengthen law enforcement’s ability to treat with this issue,” said Mitchell, noting that the drone technology can be used to destroy lives as well as to save lives.
He acknowledged for example that drones can be used to drop off drugs and guns and be involved in other criminal activities.
“You can intercept a flight, you can drop a bomb over the residences of the Governor General, or the Prime Minister or the ministerial complex. So, we have to create some no-fly zones, we have to create the areas that are safe.
“But drones also have significant qualitative applications like in agriculture for example, in healthcare – the ability to drop medicine and so on to people in remote areas,” said Mitchell.
He told legislators that in the aftermath of Hurricane Beryl on July 1, this year, drone technology could have assisted with providing medicine to the people of Carriacou and Petite Martinique.
“If we had significant drones on the island, we would have been able to drop medicine etc to people in Carriacou and Petite Martinique notwithstanding the challenges of having physical infrastructure,” he said.
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