In the past couple of years, as technology has advanced at a staggering rate, security as an issue has reached an all time high. Be it home security or national surveillance, people are looking to the latest in technology to assist them with past problems. When it comes to security, many words have been thrown around but most of the time theres one word you will here, Drones.

What is a drone? In all simplicity, a drone is a robot. Not like a “hollywood” robot like the one in iRobot, but a more functional one. It has propeller’s that let it fly and a camera to help guide it. Lately drones have been used for a variety of tasks; The Parrot A.R. Drone is a regular drone that can be considered a sort of toy, or even a filmmaker’s tool thanks to it’s camera. Even Amazon has plans to build a drone that can deliver your shopping to you within 30 minutes. These are just a few examples, but they don’t seem too bad do they? They sound like regular machines that can help us with our day to day activities. But they’re not the only type.

The Recreational Type.

As of late, this is what drone’s refer to. The aforementioned Parrot Drone falls under this category and can be seen as a recreational drone. Think of these drones as toys for enthusiasts. They’re kind of like remote controlled toy cars, but they fly. People usually take these kind of drones out to the park just to play with them and while away time just flying them around the sky and enjoying the serenity of the future. More recently, people have begun attaching cameras to drones. It began as a way for kids to record their activities in the park or for parents to capture some memories. However, some independent filmmakers saw this as an opportunity, and instead began using drones to achieve shots that previously would have required thousands of dollars of equipment and maybe even a helicopter.

Using a drone for filmmaking and recreational purposes does have it’s drawbacks. From a filmmaker’s perspective, using a drone does get you shots comparable to those of high end equipment but if a filmmaker has the budget it is recommended to opt for the high end equipment as the quality that can be achieved and the level of control over the environment is much greater. At a recreational standpoint, many concerns have been raised that drones are being used to spy on people and are extremely hazardous to bystanders if not operated properly. The FAA ( Federal Aviation Administration) has yet to pass rules regarding the use of recreational drones, however it is speculated that a rule may be passed that requires the drone operator to have a license that permits him/her to fly said drone. Some parks and locations in the US have also put up signs detailing that the area is a “No Drone Zone”.

The Security Sector.

One of the oldest model of the drone is the “Unmanned Aerial Vehicle” which has been used by militaries and government agencies since the mid 1900’s. The design of the drone is similar to that of a fighter jet. In the beginning, the drone was invented to go places where it was too risky for a human being to go. By using drones various government agencies are able to infiltrate enemy locations and collect intelligence, as well as launch an attack without the risk of a soldier being captured or harmed. As with any android related weapon, there are various rules and regulations related to the operation of drones and a lot of measures have been taken to make sure that drones should be used only where absolutely necessary. With that said, and with the events of the PRISM leaks last year — where tons of documents had leaked that the National Security Agency of America were spying on their citizens — more and more allegations and accusations have arisen against the illegal use of drones by militaries of several countries for the purpose of spying on their citizens.

Although drones have been in the private and government security game for a long time, only recently has it made it’s way to home security. SXSW (South By South West), a film and music conference that started back in 1987, has lately graduated to cover anything in the wide world of technology. This year, there’s something very unique at SXSW.

The Verge reported of a company at SXSW that is demoing a drone that’s primary utility would be to secure your home. The CUPID, developed by Chaotic Moon, looks like any ordinary drone at first glance, but you wouldn’t be smart to aggravate it, unless you were looking to get electrocuted. The CUPID comes equipped with a stronger than average electric taser that has the ability to paralyse anything that crosses its path. There isn’t one specific use for a drone such as the CUPID, but one of the examples is that it can be used to guard a property, where it can detect intruders and handle them appropriately, by electrocuting them of course.

The CUPID comes with a variety of safety precautions, but in the wrong hands can be extremely dangerous. This is probably the case with all the other drones out there, and that is why the future is frightening. We’ve seen in the past where technology was developed to do good and in the wrong hands got turned into the deadliest of weapons. This is the risk with all modern technology, and just like a good horror movie, it’s the suspense that makes it so exciting.

In the Corporate World.

Even with all the allegations being thrown around regarding drones, many corporations believe that these robots are in the futures best interest. In the past few months alone, Google completed its purchase of drone maker Boston Dynamics, who specialises in building robots designed to simulate human behaviour. If that doesn’t sound scary enough, you might want to check out this video. Rolls-Royce have announced that they are now developing cargo delivery drones, that they believe will help speed up the cargo delivery process while reducing the risk of errors.

The most popular of these companies to begin developing drones is Amazon. The Seattle based E-Commerce giant have begun work on a drone dubbed “Amazon Prime Air” that will deliver packages from their warehouse to the customer in 30 minutes or less. The channels to implement this have already begun and they are expecting a small rollout to begin sometime in 2015, depending on when they can get the right permissions and regulations.

It isn’t just companies that are getting into the whole Drone game, the UAE have announced their intention to use drones to deliver government documents to their citizens, making a lot of the issues with fraud redundant, although details on this topic are sparse to say the least.

There we have it folks, the future is coming, and it’s scary. But as frightening as it can be, it’s also extremely exciting. Growth over the past few years has become stagnant and maybe that’s just the way we think now. We live in an age where we expect the advancement in technology to overwhelm us, and all the innovations of late, although extremely brilliant, have not fulfilled the expectations that were set by movies like Back to the Future and Minority Report and have left us underwhelmed. So maybe it’s time for something to come along and whelm us once more.

This article was originally published on The Jakarta Globe.