Surveillance drones deployment on US's Great Lakes raises data collection fears

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https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jun/09/great-lakes-military-surveillance-drones

Surveillance drones deployment on US’s Great Lakes raises data collection fears

Stephen Starr
Tue 9 Jun 2026 09.00 EDT

The Great Lakes have rarely ever been considered a hotbed of illicit drug activity or center for illegal immigration.

But that hasn’t stopped US government agencies and the company behind surveillance sailing drones from treating the region as such. The US Coast Guard recently announced it has launched an armada of at least six sailing drones in the Great Lakes this summer in an attempt to, in part, “track illicit activity”.

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Part of a $15.5m contract between the coast guard and Saildrone Inc funded by Trump’s “One Big, Beautiful Bill Act”, the drones are equipped with radar, cameras and artificial intelligence systems.

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“This is a very troubling arrangement from a privacy and accountability standpoint, as we have very little public information about data retention, who can access what data is collected, or how people using the region recreationally [can] be swept up in a data system built for border enforcement.”

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[bif]

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