UK Criminals Use Drones To Case Burglary Prospects

turkeydance writes: Burglars in the UK are sending unmanned drones over houses in order to identify potential targets, police have warned. Suffolk Constabulary confirmed it had received at least one report of drones being used by burglars for surveillance of properties. Paul Ford, secretary of the Police Federation National Detectives Forum, said: “Drones can be noisy and very visible so hopefully criminals risk giving themselves away. If members of the public observe drones being used in areas which make them suspicious they should contact police using the 101 non-emergency number to report it."

Comments

At least one report

[BasilBrush]

"At least one report" does not a national trend make. And calls to the "non-emergency number" would result in the police doing absolutely nothing except log it anyway.

Pointless story.

Re:Anti drone nonsense

[serviscope_minor]

A burglar wouldn't

No, a GOOD burglar wouldn't. The thing about criminals is that like most people/jobs 80% of them are mediocre to terrible at their jobs. Most of the burglars out there are like the legions of "programmers" who fail fizzbuzz and can do nothing but copy snippets from stack overflow.

Let me see

[Crashmarik]

Telepresence,
incredibly difficult to trace back to operator if done properly,
Can not only reconnoiter but potentially interact with and manipulate environment.
Capable of moving and delivering goods.

Oh yeah I can't see these being used for criminal purposes. The surprising thing is we haven't seen this earlier.

yeah now...

[SuperDre]

Now they are noisy, but wait a while and you won't notice even one that's hanging above your head for about 2 meters..
Also there are already pretty quiet drones out there with camera's..
But it is one of the things I already expected would happen, next to the modern peeping tom's (which you already see some video's on youtube)..

Sensaltionalism

[petes_PoV]

When you read the story it comes down to one report from someone who suspected that someone was using a drone for this purpose. Everything else in the article is FUD, inaccuracy, scare-mongering and supposition (and possibly impressionable people watching too many crime / caper movies).

This is strikingly similar in tone to the stories circulating a few years ago that anyone taking photos of buildings in public places was (obviously!) a terrorist.

Re:Sensaltionalism

[ledow]

EVERY single "police" recommendation/story I read about how criminals are now doing X and we should be on the lookout for it? Utter bullshit.

Criminals are "marking" houses with little signs to indicate whether they have things of value. No. They're not.

Criminals are knocking on your door to see if you have a dog they can steal. No. They're not.

Criminals are trawling Facebook to see when you're on holiday. No. They're not. (And if you have the vaguest sense of privacy, they wouldn't be able to see it anyway).

Criminals are flying drones to see if you have anything worth nicking. No. They're not.

It's not that they aren't that sophisticated, that they couldn't do this, that there has never been a recorded instance of it, but that they - generally speaking - ARE NOT DOING THESE THINGS.

What can you see from flying a drone that will change your mind from "Oh, well, I was in two minds about this house" to "Let's rob it" (or, indeed, vice versa)?. Virtually nothing. Do you park a Lamboughini at the back of your rotten cheap house and never take it out? Unlikely. Do you keep hordes of rabid dogs that are otherwise undetectable? No.

Live your lives people. Take sensible precautions. Lock your door. Put an alarm on (and don't bother about it making lots of noise if nobody is going to care - better a silent alarm to your smartphone than something disturbing the neighbours so much that they smash it off the wall or don't care about it). And don't leave big expensive things on show.

Generally speaking, criminals are opportunists and don't care about your property anyway. If they see an open door, they'll go through it (have had this happen to me in a previous house while I was behind the open front-door doing some repairs - some guy walked past into my house and started looking around. "*cough* Can I help you, mate?" and he (thankfully) ran a mile.). If they want to burgle you, they won't wait until your smart meter reads the energy usage as low, they'll just ring the doorbell and if there's no answer, they'll force or smash their way in. Even if there's nothing worth nicking (very unusual in any house), they're in by that point so they will find something.

"Casing the joint" is for high-level planned burglaries that rarely happen outside of extremely affluent areas and they can afford their own security anyway.

Like all these things, it's rubbish.

Paul Ford

[Anonymous Coward]

And yet a bad burglar is supposed to launch a drone, fly around houses, alerting people to something, 'casing' joints, then fly it back home?

Or far more likely, is that a policeman, Paul Ford in this case is looking for opportunity to expand policing:

"Paul Ford, secretary of the Police Federation National Detectives Forum.... We must remain alive to the POTENTIAL risks posed by the misuse of technology”

Just a bad policeman writing fictional crime scenarios to protect against.

Re:Paul Ford

[serviscope_minor]

And yet a bad burglar is supposed to launch a drone, fly around houses, alerting people to something, 'casing' joints, then fly it back home?

Given that I can buy a drone for about 60 quid at the local Maplin (or one for 20 quid that fell off the back of a lorry) and do all of that with essentially zero training... sure why not?

Whatever suspicions one might have of the police, this is not an especially unlikely use of drones.

Re:Anti drone nonsense

[captainpanic]

A burglar wouldn't draw attention to themselves like that, so that's just some rozzer trying to dream up anti-drone propaganda.

It is anti-drone propaganda, but also just the next scaremongering. Fear the new things! Fear the unknown! The government will protect you!

Re:Anti drone nonsense

[mccrew]

Fear the new things! Fear the unknown! The government will protect you!

So true. The hysteria surrounding toy helicopters (not drones!) is reminiscent of the hysteria around the internet 15 years ago - "you are welcoming the predators into your home and they're going to lure your children away!" Fear, fear, fear.