You're nicked... by the real flying squad: Steve Boggan joins Met 'pilots' controlling a fleet of drones as they swoop at lightning speed to catch criminals in the act. An Orwellian nightmare, or the weapon we've all been waiting for?

Two men saunter down The Strand in central London. They have just stolen several bottles of wine from a convenience store, but the thought of being arrested hasn't crossed their minds. After all, who gets done for shoplifting these days?

But the thieves – David Browning and Daniel Marshall, both 40 and from Westminster – are in for a shock. Staff at the store have dialled 999, and from five miles away, police are watching the thieves' every move.

A drone high above their heads is following and filming them, while the officer piloting it remotely is sending real-time information about their whereabouts to other cops on the ground.

As two patrol cars arrive, the shocked pair split up. One is quickly caught before the drone moves off in pursuit of the second, the pilot updating officers on his whereabouts. He doesn't stand a chance of escaping.

The drone's footage – which will be stored, logged and used in evidence against the crooks – shows only the tops of their heads. But the look on their faces must hqave been priceless.

Welcome to the future of policing, a world where cops will have eyes on criminals within two minutes. Where robbers, thieves, murderers and rapists will find it much harder to evade capture. And where missing people can be more easily found and rescued.

But it is also, argue civil rights campaigners, a world in which our entitlement to privacy and anonymity will be eroded by eyes in the sky, with the authorities eventually knowing who you are and what you're up to as you go about your daily business. 

After all, on the first page of Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell wrote: 'In the far distance a helicopter skimmed down between the roofs, hovered for an instant like a bluebottle... It was the police patrol, snooping into people's windows.'

These are the two forces pulling in different directions as law enforcement's use of fast-moving technology races ahead of the legal frameworks designed to govern it.

On the one hand, the use of remotely controlled drones will doubtless cut crime, make you safer on the streets and catch more bad guys.

On the other hand are real concerns over some dystopian – and so far imaginary – future in which Big Brother could have eyes on us all, all the time.

There are currently data protection laws and police and Civil Aviation Authority protocols that determine what can be filmed by police cameras, how that footage is used, stored and disposed of and where and how high drones can fly. 

But legal boundaries specific to drones are yet to be set by the Government – and police argue that they simply can't wait for them while criminals embrace technology apace.

In a speech in June heralding the use of more drones as first responders to 999 calls, Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley said: 'New technology often meets resistance, but when it is used responsibly and proves its worth, it becomes indispensable. That is the lesson from nearly 200 years of policing.

'Policing today will fail if it is not allowed to keep pace with criminals through technology. That is not a prediction for the distant future. It is a present reality.'

Tellingly, he added: 'Criminals don't have to play by any rules. They do not care about protecting your data – they actively seek to exploit it. They are not constrained by governance or procurement rules.' 

How then are these drones used, who is controlling that use, and just how good are they in criminal situations? 

Police forces across the country have been deploying drones for years, but until recently they have been piloted on the ground by officers with eyes on them.

According to the National Police Chiefs' Council (NPCC), police forces conducted 86,000 drone flights last year.

Since 2023, the NPCC has been promoting their use from beyond the line of sight so they can be first to the scenes of crime.

On average, drones, travelling at just under 50mph in a straight line, arrive in less than two minutes, compared with a ten-minute target for patrol cars blue-lighting to the scene. 

'Our arrest rate has doubled because, when we use drones, we don't lose people,' says Superintendent Taryn Evans, the NPCC's lead for drones.

'Imagine someone calls in saying, 'There are men cycling around in balaclavas stealing people's phones on Oxford Street.'

'By the time we get to Oxford Street in a car, they would have heard the sirens and seen the lights and they would have gone.

'But if a drone is overhead, the drone pilots have already identified and located the suspects. They say, 'No problem. The suspects have gone down here, left here, right here.' And at a time and a place of our choosing, we coordinate resources and we calmly put in an intervention.'

According to the Met, drones have played a big part in reducing mobile phone thefts in the capital by 21 per cent in just one year. 

Supt Evans shows me round the Met's central drones hub, a small, unremarkable office at Hammersmith police station in west London.

From here, teams of two pilots watching an array of screens are fed details of 999 calls about crimes in which drones could play a pivotal role. Today, there is just one team, but in the future there are plans for more.

The Met, which is at the vanguard of the use of drones as first responders, has seven that can be launched in seconds from high-tech docking stations permanently situated on police station roofs in Islington, north London (two drones), Charing Cross in the West End (three), and Kennington in south London (two).

Supt Evans says the network covering the three boroughs, directed from this hub, has cost just £400,000 this year – for the drones, the docks, the high-tech screens, software and the ancillary equipment that controls the piloting. During that time, the team has sent drones to more than 4,000 incidents.

Compare that with the cost of National Police Air Service helicopters, which cost £5,700 per flying hour, with 48 per cent of that time spent in transit getting to or from the scene.

In the past five years, 80 per cent of police air support across the country has been switched to drones. 

A 999 call comes in from a woman terrified of being attacked by her brother in her home. He's carrying a steel pole and is threatening her. An officer relays details of the incident to the pilots, Special Constable Radwane Gasmi and a second who does not wish to be named. Both have undergone specialised training.

An image appears on one of their screens as the drone's camera is activated. The pilots run through a checklist to ensure the device is fully charged, that its emergency parachute is in working order (in case of a malfunction), that weather conditions are safe and that there are no other aircraft in the vicinity.

In seconds, it takes off, whizzing to the scene, precision-guided by GPS route mapping.

In short order, the woman can be seen below as patrol cars race to her aid. She is outside now, cowering next to a window. And then the man can be seen walking away from the woman's home. She joins him, but possibly because he has ordered her to do so. The drone follows, unseen.

The woman peels away, or escapes, and the drone follows the suspect to a bus stop. He hides behind it as the patrol cars arrive, and the pilots tell officers on the ground where he is hiding before he is taken into custody. 

'If we didn't have eyes on the brother, he would have got away from the scene,' says SC Gasmi. 'We would have had to carry out subsequent investigations to find him, identify him and take him into custody.'

Shoplifters are caught. A potentially violent man is apprehended. And Supt Evans describes other incidents in which fast-acting drone pilots have been able to come to the aid of victims of violence and abuse, often women and girls.

So what opposition could anyone possibly have to the technology that makes such interventions a reality? Well, the way things stand – without proper legislation – there are some real concerns.

'Drones may have a role in providing quicker updates to evolving emergencies than helicopters, but the Met police must not use them as constant flying surveillance cameras,' says Jake Hurfurt, head of research and investigations at Big Brother Watch. 

He and other privacy campaigners are concerned that the police have not ruled out equipping drones with live facial recognition technology. This enables cameras to zoom in on faces and cross-reference them with watchlists of known criminals, sex offenders and wanted people.

While Big Brother Watch does not oppose such technology, it points out that when it is used at ground level, signs are posted warning passers-by that they are being filmed, and explaining why. With cameras hovering above on drones, there are no such warnings.

Hurfurt adds: 'It's alarming that the Met has refused to rule out using facial recognition technology on drones, which could turn them into quasi-covert face scanning devices, and it has dodged questions about other intrusive surveillance capabilities.'

These include the use of International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI) technology. This enables the police to scan mobile phones' unique signatures so they can track individuals. Mass use of IMSI could identify multiple individuals at large gatherings such as demonstrations.

I ask Supt Evans whether there were plans to roll this out, but she declines to comment.

'The public should be informed about how, when, and why these drones are used, but as it stands the Met has not published any policy about them,' says Hurfurt. 'The police should not roll out technology and think about the details later.'

However, Supt Evans argues that what drones observe is no different from what helicopter crews see – and they have been around for decades.

She also says that any inappropriate filming would be unlikely, as it is all logged. Any officer filming inappropriately would be caught and disciplined.

According to Professor William Webster, the UK's independent biometrics and surveillance camera commissioner, it is important that checks around the use of drones be independently conducted so as to avoid the police 'marking its own homework'.

He would like to see independent auditing to ensure controls are in place and footage of innocent people is deleted within a specified retention period. Prof Webster's office oversees the use of such cameras in public places under powers outlined in the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012.

The role balances the requirements of the police to use such technology while abiding by a surveillance camera code of practice, which defends the public's rights to privacy. With cameras in the air, his role isn't so clear-cut.

'My issue with drones at the moment is how police forces demonstrate that they are 'overt', that is, out in the open,' he says. 'It is important for the public to know when they are under surveillance and who is conducting that surveillance. 

'This is more difficult for drones, as they are not always observable, and without signage, how do police forces alert the public to the presence of drone-based surveillance cameras?'

He says that this makes informing the public that they are being watched and also filmed doubly important.

When the two Strand shoplifters were stealing their wine, witnesses say a smug Browning shouted to staff: 'You can't stop me!' Perhaps not, but the Met's drones team could.

That was in July. Both men pleaded guilty to handling stolen goods, and Browning is not so smug now – he was returned to prison as he was out on licence for a previous offence. Marshall is awaiting sentencing for other shoplifting offences.

While the differences between the need for law enforcement and rights to privacy remain, they could be resolved in the New Year, when Parliament is expected to pass a policing reform bill.

Prof Webster hopes this will give a proposed new regulator more powers of oversight while allowing the police to take advantage of emerging technologies to do their job. Parliament has to get the balance right. 

If it does, more police drones will fly, more criminals will be caught, and the public's rights to both privacy and safety will have been enhanced.

And all without George Orwell turning in his grave.