Ryan Calo, a legal expert who is one of the best analysts of UAV policy issues, has looked at the FAA's new roadmap for civilian drone use from a privacy perspective and is pretty impressed. His full essay is in Forbes, but here is the key part:
[The] right word for the agency’s other answers is, I think, “sensible.” The FAA pointed to tort laws that can help address individual grievances, which is true in the worst cases. It cited the fact that the test sites would be public institutions subject to political pressure and freedom of information requests, and the fact that local legislatures could act to curb privacy abuses should they materialize. Left unstated was Margot Kaminski’s argument that, in addition to privacy, drone policy must be sensitive to free speech principles; the best way to reconcile the tension between privacy interests and use of drones by citizens or the press to foster accountability may be to let the states each strike their own balance.
What is really getting lost in the debate, however, are the subtle signals the Administration is sending about the future of drone regulation. The FAA didn’t just pass test site rules. It refered to privacy (at page 16), for the first time, as a “regulatory driver.” It listed privacy (at 32) as one goal of “developing and implementing the [drone] system requirements established by the FAA.” The agency says (at page 42) that “new or revised regulations and supplemental procedures” may be necessary and, if so, they will be implemented “in coordination with relevant agencies to address related security and privacy implications.”
In other words, the privacy rules for the test sites are just the beginning: the test sites will test privacy, just as they test congestion, safety, and everything else. The Joint Planning and Development Office’s Comprehensive Plan is pretty explicit on this strategy (at page 7): “As use of [unmanned aerial systems] by civil agencies and private industry grows, preserving the privacy, civil rights, and civil liberties of individuals becomes increasingly important. … The lessons learned and best practices established at the test sites may be applied more generally to protect privacy in UAS operations throughout [national airspace].”
Comments
I really don't understand why the FAA needs worry about privacy and civil rights? Does the Federal Highway Administration have the job of policing me if I shoot pictures of my neighbor's house from the street? I don't think they do, but I could be wrong. I am pretty sure that is a local law enforcement issue though. Also, if I stick a pole with a camera at the end over my fence to capture me neighbor sun-bathing naked, does the FAA have any say? Or is it only when the camera has no direct contact with the ground that they take over?
My point of course...there are many ways to spy on people without using, "drones," and somehow society manages to keep moving forward.
I don't know maybe that's good.
But the FAA is already completely understaffed to handle just meeting the safety and security issues around "drones".
Adding privacy and civil rights to their plate seems to be just adding to what is already, likely from their perspective pretty much an impossible task in the first place.
It still seems to me that privacy and civil rights issues are and until now have been handled by other agencies and existing laws and if new ones need to be made then so be it, but putting these issues under the helm of the FAA is going to give them a much greater scope (and responsibility) than they now have.
In fact they will grow to have a very "Homeland Security" or Big Brother aspect to them.
Who watches the watchers - - I know, the NSA and look how well that's working for us.