The city of Baltimore will soon be looking to start using new police surveillance planes to fly around the region this year.

This is a pilot program that is going to involve at least 3 surveillance planes to be used.

It's alleged that the planes won't be able to identify specific individuals but they will be used to help track violent crimes in the city.

Civil liberties groups have already expressed opposition to the new program, which is expected to start sometime in May of this year.

During the hours that the city experiences high crime rates, the planes will be flying around and collecting footage.

The Baltimore police commissioner has previously suggested that the idea is still untested, it's a pilot strategy that they aren't sure is going to prove to be fruitful just yet.

Baltimore Will Become The 1st U.S. City to Use These Surveillance Planes To Try and Solve and Deter Crime

Overall, the planes are going to serve as another tool to try and tackle crime in the region. And though they might be the first to use these planes they aren't the first to turn to drones for help with their duties.

No Faces

The planes for this pilot program, that it is expected they will be using, will essentially work to cover at least 90 percent of the city region, and will be helpful in tracking movement and action, but allegedly won't be able to help identify faces and individuals specifically.

The police officers working with the program are not going to have access to the live feeds for the planes but they will ultimately receive evidence packages relating to certain crimes that might have been reported.

They will be using this new program for a limited period of time, followed by an expected full independent investigation over how effective it was for them.

The program is expected to be funded by philanthropic funds, instead of the usual tax pool. They've previously used this aerial surveillance tactic in earlier years, with even top city officials allegedly unaware that it was being tested. In the time that this surveillance objective was employed however, it managed to gather hours of evidence which showcased multiple crimes, including various murders and shootings..

"The surveillance plane means putting every resident of Baltimore under permanent surveillance, creating a video record of everywhere that everyone goes every time they walk outside,... If the police did that in real life, in person on our streets, we would never accept it." - American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland and the Coalition for Justice, Safety and Jobs in a joint statement.

Various media outlets have reported that FBI thermal imaging technology is what is behind the program, that the FBI has been using that tech with these planes to previously spy on Baltimore residents.

What had been going on allegedly in secret for years, is something that now authorities are trying to roll-out with more transparency, hoping that it will soon become the norm.

Previous polls have found that as much as 70 percent or more of the residents in Baltimore would support this sort of surveillance initiative.

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