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

Workers deploy a Saildrone ‘Voyager’ drone into the Baltic Sea at the Koge Marina in Koge, eastern Denmark, in June 2025. Photograph: James Brooks/AP View image in fullscreen Workers deploy a Saildrone ‘Voyager’ drone into the Baltic Sea at the Koge Marina in Koge, eastern Denmark, in June 2025. Photograph: James Brooks/AP Surveillance drones deployment on US’s Great Lakes raises data collection fears Rights groups and some locals worry that program to ‘track illicit activity’ could become a data collection project 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”. At 33ft long, Saildrone Inc’s Voyager surveillance vessels can operate for 100 days at a time without needing servicing. The California-headquartered company claims the drones can operate for months without refueling and can “track vessels across wide maritime regions”. “They help the coast guard to maximize its awareness and understanding of cross-border maritime activity, and to help detect or deter vessels that may be involved in illicit activities such as illegal fishing, human trafficking, or narcotics trafficking,” said Anthony Popiel, a US Coast Guard UAS program coordinator based in the Great Lakes. 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. But rights groups and some locals are concerned that the program could become a data collection project, impinging on people’s expectation of being able to take to the lakes without fear of being surveilled. “These vessels are equipped with radar and optical sensors capable of continuous monitoring, and they operate under what’s called a ‘contractor-owned, operated’ model, meaning a private company, Saildrone, is collecting the surveillance data and selling it to the government,” says Petra Molnar, the author of The Walls Have Eyes: Surviving Migration in the Age of Artificial Intelligence , and associate director of the Refugee Law Lab at York University in Toronto. “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.” Five US states – Minnesota, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York – share a Great Lakes water border with Canada. The Trump administration has long accused Canada of allowing illicit drugs into the US, a charge that has fueled crushing tariffs on Canadian go