Minister Dekker: detecting cannabis plantations with drones has hardly any privacy consequences

Sander Dekker, Minister for Legal Protection, explained the rules that apply to the use of drones. Limburg farmers want to use this to trace cannabis plantations on their fields, which, according to the minister, does not have major privacy implications.

Dekker writes that the manual drones and privacy states that citizens and companies can use drones if it is really necessary. He says about detecting cannabis plantations on corn fields: “The chance that the use of drones will lead to the processing of personal data in that case is virtually nil.” It would be important here that the deployment is done in such a way that as few images as possible of roads and paths are recorded.

If faces are nevertheless recorded, they can be made unrecognizable by means of blurring. Whether this is really necessary depends on the costs, the likelihood of people being captured and the state of the art. If the surveillance with drones actually produces images of a cannabis plantation, these can be passed on to the police.

The use of drones on maize fields should therefore not be subject to ‘unnecessary restrictions’, according to the minister. Stricter rules apply if drones are used for other purposes, such as tracking down criminals. In such cases there is a ‘more than minimal chance that personal data will be processed’. As a result, in those situations it is necessary to consider in advance whether other or less drastic means are available to achieve the same goal.