At a faculty research seminar on January 30, Assistant Professor Austin Choi-Fitzpatrick presented ongoing research on civil society uses for drones. As a social movements scholar, Choi-Fitzpatrick’s research centers around how drones can be used to promote corporate accountability, state accountability and conflict, human rights monitoring, and social movements and protests.
Building on research from the SPP Drone Lab, Choi-Fitzpatrick is currently working on two related articles. The first argues for an ethical framework for the use of drones by various actors. Pulling together questions and concerns from these different actors, this ethical framework considers issues including subsidiarity, the “do no harm” principle, privacy, and data security. The second provides an easily replicable methodology for estimating crowd size using drones.
Choi-Fitzpatrick also presented a number of research questions that the SPP Drone Lab is currently tackling. These questions include the preservation of people’s anonymity on drone footage, humanitarian uses, and policy and safety in an evolving regulatory environment.