Skip to content

Highway asset survey unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)/drones privacy notice

We keep this privacy notice under regular review and it was last updated on 24 July 2023.

Kent County Council respects your privacy and is committed to protecting your personal data. This privacy notice will inform you as to how we look after your personal data and tell you about your privacy rights and how the law protects you.

Who we are

Kent County Council collects, uses and is responsible for certain personal information about you. When we do so we are regulated under the United Kingdom General Data Protection Regulation (‘UK GDPR’) and the Data Protection Act 2018. We are responsible as ‘controller’ of that personal information.

The objective of the Highways and Transportation Department’s Highways Asset Management Plan is to ensure the long life of Kent County Council’s highway assets, such as roads, pavements, street lightings, drainage, trees, throughout Kent. Phase 3 of the LiveLabs project is to undertake UAV/drone trials to identify and assess the condition of the roads and pavements, the condition of the vegetation and their eco-system along the highway network at designated trial locations, and to assess the condition of water and power utility assets.

Our Data Protection Officer is Benjamin Watts.

The personal information we collect and use

Information collected by us

In order to carry out an inspection of the condition of our highway assets, vegetation and their ecosystem, and of water and power utility assets we collect the following personal information using UAV/drones technology:

  • Digital still photo images

No audio or video recording imagery is captured.

How we use your personal information

  • Any personal data captured within the digital still photo images (such as people’s faces, vehicle number plates and sole trader contact details on the sides of vehicles) will be redacted or blurred using OpenCV AI software technology as part of the post-flight digital still photo analysis stage. During the post-flight analysis stage, the unredacted digital still photo images captured by the UAV/drones will be manually reviewed to ensure data accuracy, data quality, and data verification.
  • We will use the redacted or blurred digital still photo images to train the AI software, so that software learns how to:
    • identify and profile highway defects in our highway assets
    • evaluate the surrounding environment, such as drainage runoffs
    • identify different types of vegetation (such as oak, beech)
    • pinpoint the location of vegetation along the highway network
    • measure the size of vegetation (such as how tall a tree is).
  • We will use infra-red camera technology to capture non-personal thermal digital still photo images which will be used to:
    • assess the proximity of highway utilities and infrastructure (such as electricity and water cables, sub-stations) near to clusters of vegetation
    • measure the health of plants and vegetation.

We use Amey Aerial Services (a third-party contractor) to project manage the UAV/drone technology Phase 3 trial project on behalf Kent County Council.

We use Altitude Aerial Photography Ltd (a third-party supplier) to carry out the UAV/drone flights at the designated Phase 3 trial site locations and obtain the digital still photos and infrared imagery.

We use Rosemount Aerospace (a third-party supplier who are part of Collins Aerospace) to manually review the unredacted digital still photo images during the post flight data processing stage to ensure data accuracy, data quality and for verification purposes. Rosemount Aerospace will use OpenCV AI software (part of the Sci-Toolset software) to redact or blur the digital still photo images which contain any personal data (such as people’s faces, vehicle number plates and sole trader contact details on the sides of vehicles). Once redacted or blurred, Rosemount Aerospace will use Sci-Toolset AI software to process the redacted digital still photo images to train the AI software, so that the AI software is able learn how to analyse the highway assets, vegetation and highway utilities and infrastructure for defects and issues (such as cracks in the pavement and hotspots at electricity sub-stations).

Read Altitude Aerial Photography, Collins Aerospace and Amey privacy notice.

Reasons we can collect and use your personal information

We rely on Article 6(1)(e) of GDPR processing is ‘necessary for the performance of a public task in the public interest’ under Section 41 of the Highways Act 1980 (‘the highway authority… are under a duty to maintain the highway’) being the lawful basis on which we collect and use your personal information.

The provision of digital still photo imagery is required to enable us to assess, monitor and maintain the condition of highway assets and environment along Kent countywide highway network.

If we do not collect digital still photo imagery, we may not able to assess, monitor and maintain the condition of highway assets and environment along Kent county-wide highway network.

How long your personal data will be kept

The digital still photo images are collected by Altitude Aerial Photography using UAV/drone cameras and these digital still photo images are transported to Rosemount Collins Aerospace offices after the UAV/drone flight has taken place. KCC will not view the digital still photo images during this time. The unredacted digital still photo images are kept for up to 3 weeks during which time Rosemount Collins Aerospace manually review the unredacted digital still photo images for data accuracy, data quality and verification purposes. The digital still photo images are overlapped with each other and are then spliced together to form a single ‘full picture’ of an area. The full picture is then redacted or blurred by Rosemount Collins Aerospace using OpenCV AI software technology, so that no personal details are visible, and the original unredacted or blurred digital photo still images are overwritten and no longer exist.

Rosemount Collins Aerospace/Amey Aerial Services will make the redacted or blurred digital photo images available to Kent County Council. Kent County Council and Amey Aerial Services will store the redacted or blurred highway asset digital still photo images indefinitely (from the date of data collection), for use in future highway asset management related projects.

Who we share your personal information with

We will share the unredacted digital still photo images with Rosemount Collins Aerospace who will use automated AI software technology to redact or blur any personal images, as part of the post flight data processing and analysis stage.

This data sharing enables Rosemount Collins Aerospace to redact or blur any digital still photo images which contain personal data (such as people’s faces, vehicle number plates and sole trader contact details on the sides of vehicles etc.) and train the AI software, so that the AI software is able learn how to analyse the highway assets, vegetation and highway utilities and infrastructure for defects and issues (such as cracks in the pavement and hotspots at electricity sub-stations for example). It enables Rosemount Collins Aerospace to produce a report (containing redacted or blurred non-personal data only) of the condition and location of highway assets and surrounding environment.

Rosemount Collins Aerospace/ Amey Aerial Services will share the report (containing redacted or blurred non-personal data) with Kent County Council and stakeholders (such as the ETCC, Kent Lane Rental Board, UKPN and Southern Water) for the purposes of incorporating the necessary actions required to maintain the highways assets and ecosystem, as part of the Highways Asset Management Plan.

We will share personal information with law enforcement or other authorities if required by applicable law or in connection with legal proceedings.

We will share personal information with our legal and professional advisers in the event of a dispute, complaint or claim. We rely on Article 9(2)(f) where the processing of special category data is necessary for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims or whenever courts are acting in their judicial capacity.

Your rights

Under GDPR you have rights which you can exercise free of charge which allow you to:

  • know what we are doing with your information and why we are doing it
  • ask to see what information we hold about you (subject access request)
  • ask us to correct any mistakes in the information we hold about you
  • object to direct marketing
  • make a complaint to the Information Commissioner's Office.

Depending on our reason for using your information you may also be entitled to:

  • ask us to delete information we hold about you
  • have your information transferred electronically to yourself or to another organisation
  • object to decisions being made that significantly affect you
  • object to how we are using your information
  • stop us using your information in certain ways.

For further information about your rights, including the circumstances in which they apply, read the guidance from the UK Information Commissioners Office on individuals’ rights under GDPR.

If you would like to exercise a right, please contact the Information Resilience and Transparency Team at data.protection@kent.gov.uk.

Keeping your personal information secure

We have appropriate security measures in place to prevent personal information from being accidentally lost, or used or accessed in an unauthorised way. We limit access to your personal information to those who have a genuine business need to know it. Those processing your information will do so only in an authorised manner and are subject to a duty of confidentiality.

We also have procedures in place to deal with any suspected data security breach. We will notify you and any applicable regulator of a suspected data security breach where we are legally required to do so.

Contact

Please contact the Information Resilience and Transparency Team at data.protection@kent.gov.uk to exercise any of your rights, or if you have a complaint about why your information has been collected, how it has been used or how long we have kept it for.

You can contact our Data Protection Officer, Benjamin Watts, at dpo@kent.gov.uk, or write to: Data Protection Officer, Sessions House, Maidstone, Kent ME14 1XQ.

UK GDPR also gives you right to lodge a complaint with Information Commissioner, who may be contacted via the Information Commissioner's website or call 03031 231113.

Read our corporate privacy statement.