Airborne military technology developed to track the Taleban in Afghanistan will be deployed in England to spot muggers, stolen cars and even illegal immigrants arriving by sea.

Police forces in Kent and Essex have begun a development project with BAE Systems, Europe’s largest defence company, to make unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) part of their arsenals.

BAE’s high endurance rapid technology insertion vehicle (Herti) aircraft has been used by the British military in Afghanistan to direct bombing raids and to follow the Taleban back to their bases. Some UAVs operating in Iraq and Afghanistan have been fitted with missiles that are capable of destroying enemy units when they are uncovered.

Police commanders hope that such military-grade equipment will be capable of automatically detecting crimes from the air and then directing ground forces to investigate further.

BAE’s work with the Kent and Essex forces, called the South Coast Partnership, is part of a wider strategy that the company is adopting to move from pure defence into security. BAE wants to generate up to £300 million a year from civilian security operations, such as providing UAVs and monitoring the surveillance feeds from closed-circuit television cameras.

Alison Woods, BAE’s strategy director, said: “We have the kit and we have the skills that are relevant to the security sector and our intention is to build on that.”

A number of police forces, including Merseyside and Strathclyde, have already deployed remote-controlled aircraft as spy-in-the-sky drones. They are used typically to monitor crime scenes and can be programmed to operate within a certain area using GPS navigation.

However, modern military UAVs are significantly more advanced and can change their missions to pursue a perceived threat or a criminal.

BAE has begun to work with the police to determine how the Herti can be used by officers. Some test flights are expected within three years. The biggest hurdle that the technology faces is getting approval from the Civil Aviation Authority to use civilian airspace. This is particularly important in the South East, given the proximity of Gatwick, Stansted and other airports.

Richard Williams, BAE’s director of civil autonomous systems, said: “UAV capabilities are already available to the military and many of the same capabilities are desirable to the police. UAVs offer police the option of persistent surveillance, keeping a set of eyes open over a large area.”

BAE hopes that through the South Coast Partnership it will be able to develop Herti for civilian applications for the 2012 Olympic Games when they are held in London.

UAVs have a big advantage over traditional helicopter surveillance as they can stay in the air for up to 24 hours, depending on the equipment carried, rather than only two or three. In addition, they are much smaller and quieter than helicopters and military versions have been fitted with sensors to detect radiation, chemical and biological emissions.

Other defence companies, including Qinetiq and Thales UK, are developing UAV technologies. Thales won a £800 million contract two years ago to build 54 Watchkeeper UAVs, which will provide battlefield intelligence to the Army. Thales said that it was considering how the technology could be used in the civilian sector.

Critics said that such monitoring would add to concerns that Britain was becoming a surveillance society.

Shami Chakrabarti, the director of Liberty, the human rights group, said: “It’s a grave step in any democracy to use military surveillance methods against your own peacetime population. Where is the lawful authority for this policy? When was the parliamentary debate? A paradigm shift in privacy protection can’t be left to cosy little deals between big business and local police.”

Not to be messed with

Payload: 150kg, including full motion video, infrared sensor, three still cameras. Options include synthetic aperture radar, a target geo-location capability, target designation systems, electronic and signals intelligence sensors

Wingspan: 8m

Flight time: 20 hours

Weight: approx 750kg

Armament: up to four missiles and one 70mm cannon

Missions: Helmand, Afghanistan

Source: Defence journal estimates

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