By Tyler Lee on 04/27/2016 18:00 PDT

crowd-control-droneDrones seem to be a pretty cool piece of technology for photographers and videographers for getting some amazing and unique aerial shots and perspective. They can also double up as potential tools for delivery, and now it looks like the police in Paris want drones to help keep an eye over crowds.

According to the police in Paris, they are currently shopping about for hexacopter drones, which for those unfamiliar are basically drones that are powered by six electric motors. The goal is that the police will deploy these drones outdoors over crowds within a 1km radius, but apart from being able to provide eyes in the sky, these drones will be able to do more than that.

Some of the specifications that the police are after include the ability for the drones to be able to detect a car’s license plate from a distance of at least 50m and at an altitude of 30m. These drones will also need to be small enough to be able to fit into the trunk of a police car, and be easy to operate and won’t need more than 5 days of training, even for police who have never flown a drone before.

They will also need to be relatively quiet since we guess the presence of a drone buzzing away noisily in the sky would give away its position even for those who aren’t looking out for them. That being said, this isn’t the first time we’ve seen drones used for law enforcement purposes. Over in India, the police have used drones equipped with pepper spray as a means of crowd control.