In need of drone? Or just want a drone? It’s as easy as walking into your nearest Target. Nestled in the electronic aisle, this unmanned flying object, with an HD camera, is ready to go.

So.. what happened to Amazon’s drone deliveries?  It’s still in the works – with its own private trial. We’re all waiting anxiously to see if/when this option will be live.

For now, anyone can purchase a drone and fly it. But there’s still a few issues involving privacy, surveillance, and consent.  A drone is pretty much a flying peeping tom. Except this peeping tom is just an eye through a lens … and it’s sneakier. It’s not as obvious. It’s definitely not a jumbling buffoon in a tree with binoculars.

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Do you need a permit ?

Well it depends if you’re using it for fun or for work. For work, requires all these regulations and certificates. More info here

For fun, you’ll need to register it if it’s over 0.55 lbs. online and slap a sticker on it. Registration costs $5 and is valid for 3 years. If you have a pretty large drone, more than 55 lbs, you’ll have to register it by paper

Where can you fly it?

You cannot fly it 5 miles from airports – without prior notification to airport and air traffic control. There’s also an app that helps navigate pilots into the appropriate zones, in real time. 

Who can fly it? 

Pilots must be 13 years of age or older (if the owner is less than 13 years of age, a person 13 years of age or older must register the small unmanned aircraft) and s/he must be a U.S. citizen or legal permanent resident. Visiting pilots have to register their UAS once they arrive in the U.S.

 

How high can you go?

Fly at or below 400 feet! But what if you’re flying over someone else’s property. Back in the day, through Common Law (British law – which is what our system is based on) the courts said that property owners owned everything from “ad coelum et ad inferos,” which means “to the heavens and to hell.” If you can imagine an infinite column, from where your property is, going vertically, that’s pretty much what they envisioned. This is outdated and doesn’t apply in our day and age. If your neighbor gets mad…there’s nothing really clear cut that they can do to make you stop. Nothing yet, at least.

Being bothered by your neighbor’s drone?

Well.. don’t get cray like the man in New Jersey who  took out a gun  and shot his neighbor’s drone out of the sky. That’s a bit much. Try and act like a civilized human being and just politely ask them to cut it out. If it escalates.. then you’ll have to see if privacy law is on your side. Sadly… the “peeping toms = drones” equation hasn’t been taken seriously yet. There’s been an instance where a father shot down a drone that was in the act of filming his daughters sunbathing. 

Can the police surveillance using a drone without a warrant?

This is a tricky question. We do have a First Amendment right to record.  This does not apply to the police, but to individuals. Now the Fourth Amendment prohibits unreasonable search and seizures – which is analyzed through whether the person has a “reasonable expectation of privacy” from an objective point of view.

If everyone… like your neighbor, your cousin, and your mom, are all flying drones – then it can be argued that having a police drone in the mix is not unreasonable since you didn’t really have a reasonable expectation of privacy. This is because the rest of the world and their moms were also flying drones around. This is the catch 22 of it all. Ironically, the more freedom we have, as individuals, to fly these drones, the more flexibility the police have to fly their own drones.

And on that note, I’ll leave you with a glass-half-full quote from Bill Gates.

“Drones overall will be more impactful than I think people recognize, in positive ways to help society. ” ~ Bill Gates