Municipal Technology Committee recommends conditional approval for five-year police drone program

The Municipal Technology Committee recommended that the town proceed with a five-year public-safety drone program and adopt a phased deployment plan that requires security, contract and training checks before operational use. Chair Matt moved the recommendation and the committee approved it unanimously.

Chief Newell, who described several recent incidents where the department relied on mutual-aid drones, told the committee the program will provide two town-owned drones with a hardware refresh at 2.5 years. "Even just one of those lost, missing children is enough to justify the cost right there," Chief Newell said, explaining search-and-rescue was a primary motivation. Committee members asked for explicit guarantees on non-use for facial recognition, license-plate reading and general patrols; the chief confirmed those capabilities would not be used.

The committee made the recommendation conditional on the town completing security configuration reviews (single sign-on, multifactor authentication, least-privilege access), a reviewed data-processing agreement with the vendor, FAA Part‑107 compliance for pilots and a vendor patch/firmware check. The committee also asked the Select Board for 90-day and 12-month public reviews to report uses, complaints and operational impacts. "My recommendation is we vote as MTC to do a conditional proceed," Matt said during the meeting.