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Government Surveillance, Privacy & Data

Will Dummy Cities Be Used to Test Drones in the U.S.?

Last year, as part of Congress’ mandate to prepare the American airspace for the age of the unmanned aerial vehicle -– or drone -– the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) was ordered to designate six locations as test sites for this up-and-coming technology. These sites will be used to make sure drones are safe to be integrated into the airspace to share it with regular manned airplanes. Privacy advocates, for their part, have proposed that this is the perfect opportunity to test the drone’s exceptional surveillance powers -– on fake, dummy cities specifically built for this purpose.