Despite opposition, France initiates drone surveillance of soccer matches

Police in France have conducted the nation’s first known drone surveillance of a pro soccer match, with flights of UAVs above Paris’s Parc des Princes stadium Saturday in what may be the first step toward regular deployment of publicly opposed aerial tech.

The Paris Police Prefecture announced it would be using drones above the venue 24 hours ahead of Saturday’s league opener between Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) and visiting Lorient. As required by laws painstakingly recrafted in the face of vociferous opposition to surveillance from on high, law enforcement officials had to respect a multi-step authorization structure, and duly alert the public before deploying UAVs to capture video and photographic images.

Given lingering public concerns that police use of drones for crowd surveillance poses serious privacy problems, choice of Saturday’s low-risk match may have had more awareness and acclimation objectives than hard-core security…