Inspection and security
An instrument, not a witness
We build things that measure a site and report what they measured. What may be watched, and by whom, is a question for a regulator and for the operator, and never for us.
What this actually is
A drone doing a security or inspection round is a sensor on a schedule. It flies the same route at the same times, records a fixed set of measurements at fixed points, and compares today against yesterday.
The value is in the comparison and not in the footage. A thermal reading on a bearing that is four degrees warmer than last week is worth more than any amount of video, and it is also far cheaper to store and far less intrusive to collect.
That is the design we build toward: measure a small number of specific things well, keep the numbers, and do not accumulate a general record of a place and the people in it.
The round
The round, and what it is built not to record
Four waypoints, three measurements, one report. Thermal for equipment that is heating up, gas where a leak would matter, sound for machinery that has started making a new noise.
Faces are not one of the measurements, and that is a construction decision rather than a setting somebody can switch on later. A camera that cannot resolve a face at the flown altitude cannot be repurposed into one by a different operator on a different day.
Where the line is, and who draws it
Filming a place where people are is camera surveillance, and in Sweden that is regulated. Some of it needs a permit from Integritetsskyddsmyndigheten, some of it needs only that you can justify it, and which is which depends on where the camera points and who is likely to be in front of it.
The permit belongs to whoever operates the system, not to whoever built it. We will tell you plainly which side of the line a design is likely to fall on, and we will name a lawyer rather than pretend to be one.
What we will not do is build something whose purpose is to identify people, or write a specification that quietly makes that possible while describing itself as inspection.
The choices
What the sensor decides
Every row here is a trade between what you learn and what you collect. The first column is usually the better buy.
| Sensor | What it tells you | What it collects about people |
|---|---|---|
| Thermal, low resolution | Something is warmer than it was | Nothing usable |
| Gas | A leak has started | Nothing |
| Sound level | A machine changed its noise | Nothing, if levels only are kept |
| Camera, high resolution | Everything, including who was there | A great deal, and it changes the legal picture entirely |
The last row is the one that turns an inspection system into a surveillance system, and it should be a deliberate decision with a lawyer in the room.
Or write here
Three fields, and a person reads it
Name, an address we can answer to, and what you are trying to build. You get a reference back straight away.
What do you need to know about your site?
Start from the measurement rather than from the camera. It is usually cheaper, and it stays on the right side of a line you do not want to cross.