The drone flew above the crime scene and helped officers find an alleged car thief using infrared imaging.

A suspected car thief was believed to be hiding from police in thick undergrowth in Bootle, Merseyside, so officers launched their new Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV).

They used the on-board thermal imaging camera to seek out the teenager and pinpoint his hiding place 300-metres away.

The officer operating the drone from the ground was then able to guide colleagues to the exact location and they arrested the 16-year-old youth.

It’s an interesting development in crime fighting and shows what these drones can do even on a small scale.

One wonders what these types of machines could do for firefighters searching a burning building — giving them a glimpse inside before they risk their lives. Rescuers could use these drones to help people immediately after a disaster and spot them from the air.

They could greatly speed up response times and spot people faster than an entire search party, but there is no question that they could infringe on certain unalienable rights.

Phil Chamberlain, a Wiltshire-based freelance journalist, wrote this in Big Issue:

However it is their spying ability which has alarmed some.

Small and manoeuvrable, UAVs can perch silently and record still, moving and thermal images. They can fly in to buildings if necessary. Specialist software has been developed that allows them to scan large areas quickly for particular vehicles or record number plates or faces and compare them against databases.

Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty, said: “It’s a grave step in any democracy to use military surveillance methods against your own peacetime population.”

This will surely be a bigger issue as these types of drones roll out to police stations around the world. Especially with incredibly cheap aerial drones on the horizon.

I wonder how long it will take before someone caught doing something in their home by these drones to file a lawsuit and making these pricey machines go the way of the illegal red light cameras.

[ViaSky News | Taking Out The Trash]

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