Suspicious drones have been spotted flying over central Paris for a second consecutive night, with local authorities still searching for their mysterious operators.
The rapid growth of drones, both for commercial and military use, has sparked a heated debate about the privacy and security of the technology. Security experts fear that the technologies that UAVs are equipped with could be misused for electronic espionage. Civil liberties and privacy groups have raised concerns about the legality of facial recognition cameras, thermal imaging cameras, Wi-Fi sniffers, license plate scanners and other sensors that drones may be equipped with.
But do we really know the origin of the drones flying above our heads and where the remote controllers of the vast number of unmanned aircraft are located? What if a terrorist group uses drones for reconnaissance before an attack?
Authorities are naturally concerned about terrorist acts and espionage, as may have happened in this case, in Paris. Drones appeared for the second time over the city's skies, between 11:00 p.m. and 2:00 a.m. last Wednesday, and even took at least 5 photos of locations.
What worries the authorities is that the places where the drones were spotted are near the Place de la Concorde, the Invalides military museum and the gates of the old city.
The previous night, five other drones were spotted at other points of interest, including the Eiffel Tower, the US Embassy and the main transport stations, Porte de Clignancourt and Porte de Saint-Cloud. The BBC reported that the mysterious UAVs were recorded by security cameras at these locations and investigators are already trying to find more information from the related videos.
