Latest Australian Government report on Drones and Privacy

Eyes in the Sky

The name says it all. It is early days yet but already you can see the influence of larger commercial groups. The recreational user nearly gets a look in.

However, this is an initial report so that the government can focus its efforts in the right ways. There is a lot of concern about the invasive use of drones but at least they have also acknowledged other surveillance technology as a risk as well.

It would seem that in Australia the use of autonomous vehicles of any sort will soon become very heavily regulated. Maybe that's not entirely a bad thing but I would also like to see some allowances made for recreational users.

Without a way to get into the field how do they expect people to get started down the road to commercial applications?

Anyway, I though this might be of interest as it is an official report from a government committee and might foreshadow things to come here and elsewhere.

Alex

xiv

Recommendation 3

The Commi

ttee recommends that the Australian Government consider

introducing legislation by July 2015 which provides protection against

privacy

invasive technologies (including remotely piloted aircraft),

with particular emphasis on protecting against intrusions on

a person’s

seclusion or private affairs.

The Committee recommends that in considering the type and extent of

protection to be afforded, the Government consider giving effect to the

Australian Law Reform Commission’s proposal for the creation of a

tort of

serious invasion of privacy, or include alternate measures to

achieve similar outcomes, with respect to invasive technologies

including remotely piloted aircraft.

You need to be a member of diydrones to add comments!

Join diydrones

Comments

Darrell Burkey July 16, 2014 at 3:09am

Did you notice this statement from CASA?

"Mr McCormick expressed CASA’s view that, at present, the reliability and

control limitations of RPAs remain sufficiently serious that they cannot be

safely integrated into shared airspace"

Yet they are talking about not having any regulations for sub 2Kg machines even when used commercially. Yet that class of machine is without a doubt overly represented in most of the dangerous flying incidents we see.
Mike T July 15, 2014 at 10:33pm

xiv

Recommendation 3

The Commi

ttee recommends that the Australian Government consider

introducing legislation by July 2015 which provides protection against

privacy

-

invasive technologies (including remotely piloted aircraft),

with particular emphasis on protecting against intrusions on

a person’s

seclusion or private affairs.

The Committee recommends that in considering the type and extent of

protection to be afforded, the Government consider giving effect to the

Australian Law Reform Commission’s proposal for the creation of a

tort of

serious invasion of privacy, or include alternate measures to

achieve similar outcomes, with respect to invasive technologies

including remotely piloted aircraft.

This reply was deleted.