In 2015, Sion Roberts (current CEO of the Eagle Eye Innovations group) was then the Head Of Academy for RUSTA, one of the inaugural CAA accredited training providers. The RPAS industry was relatively new and licencing requirements were constantly evolving. Jordan Crown MD EEI-APS was a freelance security consultant and was heading to SE Asia with a client, he thought it would be beneficial to have a drone and formal training to use within his services. Sion was Jordan’s instructor during his course in 2015.
The relationship between Sion and Jordan stayed strong over the years, their military backgrounds naturally saw the evolution of the use of drones in security and military solutions. The military as well as other services, are testament to the use of drones in both their force protection roles and larger platforms requirements, thus providing situational awareness and an enhanced footprint, allowing them to diversify their manpower and protect more ground with a proactive Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) approach.
Jordan’s career progressed to a point where he was planning an extractives project in Central America to provide a security team from the point of collection (which are predominantly in extremely rural locations with a single track in and out), through to the export process. The beginning part of this lifecycle is marred with risk not just from nefarious actors but also from weather-related issues. Jordan and his team utilised small drones to provide situational awareness for their movements in the rural locations, it also became a handy surveying tool for the validation team as they could see the geology and topography from above the tree canopy.
In 2021, Jordan was returning from his Central American project, from which Sion had kept a keen eye on his development. The two of them met, and an idea was hatched in view to creating and becoming the industry’s leading security drone specialists – this was the creation of EEI Asset Protection Solutions Ltd, the security entity of the Eagle Eye Innovations group. It was expected to further move into developing a specialised drone course for the security sector to cover the aspects of drone planning, flying, and reporting that the GVC does not cater for as it is a generalised course.
It’s now 2023 and the EEI group is developing the Security Drone Operators (SDO) course, which will provide an enhanced security sector-specific skillset to utilise a drone as a security resource and incorporate it into daily security operations. The aim of the course is to provide benefits to:
- Residential security teams – patrolling of estates and using a remote camera system to provide CCTV quality imagery and court-admissible evidence, in areas that are impossible to install CCTV systems.
- Static asset protection – the use of drone technology on the perimeter of sporting events will provide forward and advance warnings of intrusions and nefarious activities. Enabling proactive and rapid response to events. The SDO will need to have a full understanding of security procedures and how to integrate drone flying to be able to provide effective reporting.
- Surveillance operations – the SDO would greatly increase the operational footprint and efficiency of current traditional surveillance, it would also provide court-admissible data which is not currently taught on the General Visual Line of Sight Certificate (GVC).
- Security operations in complex and hostile environments – as a situational crime prevention aid, the drone can provide real-time and accurate information to enhance situational awareness and lower risks, providing an academic approach to reducing crime, threats, and lower vulnerabilities.
The SDO will be the first accredited course that is security industry-specific, it is EEI-APS’s mission to be the world leader in providing innovative drone solutions to every facet of the security industry.
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