Katedra Socjologii Prawa

Podmiot finansujący: Narodowe Centrum Nauki

Kierownik projektu: mgr Łukasz Andrzej Dziura

Ustawa o policji wysuwa na pierwszy plan służebną rolę Policji wobec społeczeństwa i obliguje policjantów w toku wykonywania czynności służbowych do respektowania godności ludzkiej oraz przestrzegania i ochrony praw człowieka. Jednocześnie Policja jako umundurowana i uzbrojona formacja powinna mieć możliwość korzystania z nowoczesnych narzędzi w celu efektywnego wykonywania swych zadań. Jednym z takich narzędzi jest technologia bezzałogowych statków powietrznych (BSP). Jej użycie przez Policję, jako technologii pierwotnie wojskowej, bez odpowiednich regulacji może przyczynić się do nadmiernej militaryzacji Policji oraz działań wykraczających poza przyznane kompetencje, a tym samym stać się zagrożeniem dla obywateli.

Głównym celem projektu jest wielopłaszczyznowe zbadanie relacji między wykorzystaniem BSP do zapewnienia bezpieczeństwa przez Policję a ochroną wolności i praw człowieka w demokratycznym państwie prawnym. Policja musi mieć zapewnioną władzę dyskrecjonalną odpowiednią do decydowania, w zgodzie z przepisami prawa, o sposobie reagowania na wyzwania w oparciu o fachową wiedzę, a następnie być rozliczana z tych decyzji. Jako że Policja posiada monopol na stosowanie środków przymusu w państwie demokratycznym, konieczne jest wypracowanie odpowiednich mechanizmów kontrolnych w celu zapewnienia, by uprawnienia, z których korzysta, były stosowane w interesie publicznym oraz w zakresie i sytuacjach prawnie dozwolonych. Tak określonemu celowi głównemu podporządkowane są cele szczegółowe: 1) analiza obowiązujących przepisów oraz procesu ich tworzenia i stosowania w tych państwach europejskich, w których policja korzysta z BSP, a użycie tej technologii zostało szczegółowo uregulowane – Wielkiej Brytanii, Niemczech oraz Hiszpanii; 2) analiza porównawcza norm prawa wewnętrznego z obowiązującymi normami prawa unijnego w zakresie wykorzystania BSP przez policję oraz zbierania, przetwarzania i przechowywania przez nią danych osobowych; 3) identyfikacja czynników umożliwiających skuteczne działanie policji w zapewnieniu bezpieczeństwa w demokratycznym państwie prawa; 4) identyfikacja sposobów regulowania nowych technologii z perspektywy skutecznej ochrony praw obywateli.

Punktem wyjścia dla osiągnięcia celu naukowego jest kompleksowa analiza prawa stanowionego regulującego wykorzystanie BSP przez polską Policję oraz policje wybranych państw europejskich – Wielkiej Brytanii, Niemiec oraz Hiszpanii. Realizacja celu niniejszego projektu wymaga również analizy stosowania prawa oraz procesów tworzenia regulacji. Wnioski sformułowane dzięki realizacji wyżej wymienionych zadań badawczych pozwolą na przeprowadzenie badań empirycznych, polegających na przygotowaniu scenariuszy i przeprowadzeniu wywiadów pogłębionych z polskimi oraz zagranicznymi ekspertami.

W dotychczas prowadzonych badaniach naukowych w Polsce, problemy poruszane w niniejszej pracy w ogóle nie zostały poruszone. W szczególności dogłębnej analizie nie zostały poddane prawne podstawy wykorzystania BSP przez Policję oraz regulacje dotyczące przestrzegania i ochrony praw człowieka w toku czynności z wykorzystaniem BSP. Wyniki przeprowadzonych badań stanowić będą istotny wkład w poszerzenie wiedzy na temat legitymizacji policji w społeczeństwie demokratycznym oraz społecznego zaufania do policji. Badania poruszają również problem zagrożeń dla praw człowieka wynikających z użycia BSP oraz sposobów regulowania nowych technologii umożliwiających ich skuteczne wykorzystanie z uwzględnieniem ochrony wolności i praw.

Research objective

Act on the Police puts the Police’s servile role towards society in the foreground, emphasizing in Article 1(1) the obligation to "protect people's safety". Article 14(3) additionally obliges Police officers to respect human dignity and to respect and protect human rights in the course of performing their duties. At the same time, Police as a uniformed and armed formation should be able to use modern tools to effectively perform its tasks. The technology of remotely piloted aircrafts (RPA) is one of those tools. Their use by the Police, being originally a military technology, without proper regulations may contribute to the excessive militarization of the Police and activities that go beyond granted authority, and as such might become a threat to citizens.

RPA can be equipped with high-resolution lenses and video cameras, which combined with face recognition technology and the ability to record almost an unlimited amount of data, allows the Police to simultaneously track a large number of people (Cavoukian 2012). Conducting air surveillance also blurs the boundaries between public and private space. The peculiarity of conducting RPA observations means that private properties or even interiors of flats can be observed. Incorrect application of RPA technology may also contribute to the loss of confidence in the Police, and even the perception of it as a force hostile to citizens.

The main goal of the project is to multidimensionally examine the relationship between using RPA by the Police to ensure public safety and protecting freedom and human rights in a democratic state ruled by law (Lang, Wróblewski and Zawadzki 1986). The Police must be provided with a discretionary power that is appropriate to decide, in accordance to law, how to professionally respond to challenges and then be accountable for these decisions. Police is a force that have a monopoly on the use of coercive measures in a democratic state, it is therefore necessary to develop appropriate control mechanisms to ensure that those measures are used in the public interest and in legally permitted areas and situations (Czapska 2015).

Specific goals are subordinated to the main goal. The first one is to analyse existing regulations and the processes of their creation and application in Great Britain, Germany and Spain – countries where RPA technology is used by the police, and the use of this technology has been regulated in detail. The second specific goal is to comparatively analyse internal country laws with European Union laws in the areas of RPA use by the police and processes of collecting, processing and storing personal data. The aim of this project is to also identify factors that allow effective police action in ensuring public safety in a democratic state ruled by law. The fourth specific goal is to identify ways to regulate new technologies by having the scope of effective citizens' rights protection in mind.

Significance of the project

Regulations considering the RPA use by the Polish Police cannot be considered to be complete. Within the limits of its tasks, Police performs activities using RPAs based on Act on the Police’s Article 15(5a), granting the authority to observe and register technical events in public places using technical means. This legal basis is identical to the use of CCTV cameras, as well as police body cameras. However, it is not certain whether RPAs are treated as mobile surveillance cameras or as a particular kind of police helicopters. Police aircrafts (including RPAs) have been classified in the Aviation Law Act as "Aviation Aircraft of Law Enforcement Services", thus they are not regulated by the provisions of this Act (with exceptions). Therefore, Police has access to technology that allows surveillance on an unprecedented scale, which ought to be used to ensure public safety. At the same time, there are no provisions regulating the circumstances of using RPA technology by the Police. Neither flight safety rules, nor permitted methods of video recording have been specified, especially in the context of human rights protection.

The abovementioned problem has already been noticed by other European countries. Devon and Cornwall Police units have been obliged to respect specific flight distances to people, vehicles and buildings, as well as to inform local communities about every RPA flight. In Germany, the use of RPA by the police depends on the laws in each state. In Berlin, the police have been banned from flying over crowds, and every time they want to perform RPA flight, they must get permission from air traffic control. Until recently, the legal situation of using RPA by the Spanish police was similar to that in Poland. However, this changed in 2017 by the introduction of the Royal Decree 1036/2017, which obliges the police to comply with laws regarding civilian RPA flights. At the same time, the decree granted the police the right to fly in the airport controlled space and at night.

In the research conducted so far, the issue of threats caused by RPA use by the police was mostly addressed in American literature (Schlag 2013, Cracknell 2016). The topic of RPAs in European literature is mentioned mainly on the occasion of privacy and personal data protection considerations (Finn and Wright 2016). In comparison, research on RPA technology in Poland is not well developed. Published articles address issues related to RPA use in specific areas, such as architecture (Szruba 2017) or energetics (Czapaj-Atłas and Dudek 2016). RPAs are also mentioned in the context of threats resulting from their use (Fellner, Manka i Mańka 2015, 2016), the right to privacy (Kociubiński 2016) or in the context of terrorist threats (Sajduk 2016).

Published sources remain at best preliminary to the topic. In previously conducted scientific research in Poland, problems raised in this project have not been addressed at all. In particular, in-depth analysis of RPA use by the police, its legal basis, and its effect on human rights has not been performed. The results of the conducted research will be an important contribution to broaden the knowledge about police legitimacy in a democratic society and social confidence in the police. Research also addresses threats to human rights arising from the use of RPAs and ways of regulating new technologies that enable their effective use, and at the same time protects freedoms and civil rights.

Work plan

The starting point for achieving the scientific goal is a comprehensive analysis of laws regulating RPA use by the Polish Police and police forces of selected European countries. The main national laws in this context are Act on the Police and Aviation Law Act, as well as relevant executive acts. An example of such executive act from the perspective of research subject is the Ordinance of the Minister of Internal Affairs and Administration of August 23, 2018 on the processing of information by the Police as a regulation defining the principles of processing and storing personal data, as such it also regards video recording using RPAs. In the case of the United Kingdom, Germany and Spain, the catalogue of normative sources contains of acts regulating the organization and rules of operation of the police, or RPA flight rules. The analysis will also cover EU regulations, in particular the Regulation of the European Parliament and Council (EU) 2018/1139 of 4 July 2018 regarding common rules in the field of civil aviation, as well as European Aviation Safety Agency’s (EASA) regulations defining EU standards of RPA flight rules.

Completion of this project’s goal also requires an analysis of law application. Sources of law application consists of, but are not limited to, administrative acts issued by the Polish Civil Aviation Office, the British Civil Aviation Authority, the German Luftfahrt Bundesamt and the Spanish Agencia Estatal de Seguridad. These offices implement guidelines developed by EASA, which in Poland has only an indirect impact on the RPA by the Police, but in the case of foreign offices is directly affected by the police's obligation to comply with rules governing civilian flights.

The analysis of processes of regulations creation will supplement the analysis of the normative basis for the use of RPA technology by the police. First and foremost, discussions, justifications, and social consultations will be analysed – especially whether the topic of civil rights was considered during law creation. Conducting a comprehensive analysis of the creation, validity and application of the law is a sine qua non condition for the multidimensional description of RPA use by the police. Conduction of such analysis is also necessary to implement further elements of the research plan in the form of conducting in-depth interviews with experts.

Conclusions formulated thanks to the completion of the abovementioned research tasks will allow to conduct empirical research, consisting of preparing scenarios and conducting in-depth interviews with experts from Poland, Great Britain, Germany and Spain. The knowledge and opinions of the respondents will significantly complement data obtained in earlier stages, in particular in regards to information on the processes of creating and applying regulations. Conducting in-depth interviews with experts will be a necessary step to broaden knowledge about factors that ensure the effectiveness of the police in a democratic state ruled by law, as well as about ways of regulating new technologies to ensure effective civil rights protection. Completion of the above-mentioned research tasks will result in a multidimensional analysis of the normative basis for the RPA use by the Police. It will also allow to portray the relationship between using RPAs to ensure public safety and its effect on freedom and human rights protection in a democratic state ruled by law. The depiction of the normative basis for the use of RPA technology by the Polish Police in comparison with regulations in selected European countries will allow for an in-depth analysis of effective solutions. This comparative assessment of solutions adopted in selected countries will also serve as a reference point to examine the impact of the RPA use by the Polish Police on the human rights and freedoms protection. Solutions adopted in selected European countries will also serve as an example of good practices for the effective implementation of using RPAs in police tasks, as well as effective control mechanisms that protect freedoms and rights of citizens. The base effect of this qualitative research will be the formulation of conclusions drawn from the abovementioned research stages.

Methods of research

The main research method used to analyse the normative basis for the application of RPA technology in Police work is dogmatic analysis, referring to normative regulations and their sources in the scope of law and its application. It will enable systematisation of normative regulations relevant to the use of RPA in Police work. It will also allow to interpret the rules, mainly based on language, system and functional interpretation. This is justified, for example, due to the discrepancies noticed in two executive regulations - RPA flights in visual line of sight and out of visual line of sight.

The basic research method used in the analysis of the normative regulation creation processes is the analysis of documents - drafts, reports on legislative committee meetings, justifications or summaries of public consultations. The analysis of the law creation process by the Civil Aviation Office in the form of announcements and guidelines of the President of the Civil Aviation Office will also be taken into account.

The project will also use comparative law analysis of internal legal norms - in particular, normative acts regulating RPA use of British, German and Spanish police units. The analysis will also cover EU legislation on RPA flight rules as well as Directive 2016/680. Analysis of internal and EU laws will serve as a point of reference for considerations regarding the impact of RPA technology use by the Polish Police on human rights and freedoms protection. It will also allow the identification of good practices that can be implemented in Polish legislature.

In-depth interviews with experts are another method of research. The selection of respondents will be intentional, due to the specificity of the issues being addressed, and will include representatives of the police, competent authorities in civil aviation, non-governmental organizations and scientists. Indepth interviews will be carried out in Poland, Great Britain, Germany and Spain. The scenarios of in-depth interviews will be adapted to the role of particular categories of respondents.