Construction Workers Are Now Being Monitored By Drones

Constructions workers building the stadium for the Sacramento Kings in California have a boss watching over them in a very literal way. Their work is being monitored by drones.

Drones periodically fly over the construction site and take videos that are converted into 3D images, which can then be compared to construction plans to highlight areas of structure that are falling behind schedule, MIT Technology review reports.

Some concerns have been raised about worker privacy or incentivizing construction workers to work longer hours. But Mani Golparvar-Fard, who helped develop this drone software, says the drones aren’t so different than normal bosses.“It’s not new to the construction industry that there would either be people standing and observing operations, or that there would be fixed cameras,” he told MIT.

Chris McFadden from Turner Construction Company, which is overseeing the project, told TIME that drones are only flown when the workers are offsite. “To be clear, we are not using drones to monitor workers or their activities,” he said. “Drones are actually flown once a week during off-hours when few people are on site, typically on Sunday, and they follow strict safety protocols such as not flying above people.”

The stadium is set to open in October 2016, if the drones keep construction on schedule.