Recreational Drones and Privacy

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

The new peeping Tom.

 

Here in the frozen north if a drone weighs less than 35 kilograms it is a model aircraft and not regulated.  Apparently the FAA in the U.S. is much more strict.

[Meg 368]

A friend of mine has one.   His videos always carry the disclaimer that he complied with FAA regulations by keeping the drone below 400 ft and not using it for commercial purposes.

 

The laws vary by state.   I would like to get one.  I think they look like fun.  But, given my proximity to an army base, NSA headquarters, and an international airport, I suspect that using one would be unwise and would be subject to additional restrictions if its use was allowed at all.

 

But it would be great, if only to launch from the roof of your car to see what is going on with the traffic.

[hym 358]

But it would be great, if only to launch from the roof of your car to see what is going on with the traffic.

 

Better traffic reports would probably be more practical.  FAA regulations pretty much forbid the use of drones around population centers, and for good reason.  The props on most models spin fast enough to kill or seriously injure a person, pretty much regardless of the point of contact.

 

A friend developed an automated drone for a senior project, and he pretty much had to test it in a cattle field to comply with FAA regulations.

[Easy Bakes 253]

wonder how much trouble you would get in for shooting one down that was peeping in your window.

[Meg 368]

 

But it would be great, if only to launch from the roof of your car to see what is going on with the traffic.

 

Better traffic reports would probably be more practical.  FAA regulations pretty much forbid the use of drones around population centers, and for good reason.  The props on most models spin fast enough to kill or seriously injure a person, pretty much regardless of the point of contact.

 

A friend developed an automated drone for a senior project, and he pretty much had to test it in a cattle field to comply with FAA regulations.

 

 

I can believe it.  My friend's videos are mostly on the beach or of a housing development under construction.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

I expect that Transport Canada will catch up to the FAA scene fairly soon now.  These things are getting to be a great nuisance.

[hym 358]

Out of curiosity, how are they getting to be a real nuisance? They are merely a toy for most drone enthusiasts, and a little known curiosity at best for most of the general public.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Out of curiosity, how are they getting to be a real nuisance? They are merely a toy for most drone enthusiasts, and a little known curiosity at best for most of the general public.

Did you read the article at the head of this thread?  In Vancouver, at least, these webcam-loaded gadgets are becoming the new peeping Tom.

[hym 358]

I did read the article. People are looking at a few isolated incidents and drawing sweeping conclusions, which is practically the definition of a hasty generalization. (A classic logic fallacy.) Meanwhile they are blissfully ignoring far more disturbing facts, like the fact that the tools for peeping into one's home are far more advanced, cheaper, easier to use, and harder to detect that anything a drone offers.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Maybe, but the main issue on recreational use of drones and any other model aircraft is a general lack of regulation in Canada.  The FAA is maybe too strict, but with others, I think Canada is too permissive.  I'd like to see something like off-leash dog parks for these gadgets.

[Meg 368]

I did read the article. People are looking at a few isolated incidents and drawing sweeping conclusions, which is practically the definition of a hasty generalization. (A classic logic fallacy.) Meanwhile they are blissfully ignoring far more disturbing facts, like the fact that the tools for peeping into one's home are far more advanced, cheaper, easier to use, and harder to detect that anything a drone offers.

 

But almost anyone can get a drone and there are few practical limits on what they can do with it.

 

Here is one article. 

 

As the price of them comes down, more people will be able to afford them.

 

Yes, they can be expensive toys but many people here have a collection of gaming consoles and games that cost more   link

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

The concern is definitely there.  Pretty soon you won't need much bling to get one of these gadgets.  Misuse of technology is usually one of the first uses.  The human beast doesn't have much moral fibre.

[hym 358]

But almost anyone can get a drone and there are few practical limits on what they can do with it.

 

Almost anyone can get a drone, but there are significant limitations to what one can accomplish with it.  Consider the following:

 

1. When manufacturers select materials for aircraft, they are trying to optimize the classic 3 variable triangle were you can optimize for 2 variables but not all 3.  In a commercial airliner, they are trying to get the best balance of strength and weight while not violating cost constraints.  In a drone, they are trying to make the drone as cheap as possible while not making it unacceptably flimsy.  Not surprisingly, most drones are incredibly fragile.  Many drones are totaled from an uncontrolled drop of as little as 6 inches.  Some don't even get off the ground before they break.
2. No one manufactures a commercial airliner that is powered by electricity, because no one has developed an electric storage technology with enough energy density to allow one to fly.  Drones can obviously fly off a battery pack, but the same physics applies, so the drone suffers from the same energy density issue.  As such, most drones either have almost no lifting capacity, or they can lift weight, but offer incredibly short flight time (sometimes less than a minute).
3. Most individuals are horrible pilots and crash their drones almost as soon as they attempt flying them manually.  Many drones are destroyed on their maiden flight.  Some folks literally bury their drones in the ground before they can even get them airborne.  Assuming one has months of patience and can stomach potentially hundreds of dollars in repair costs, one can reasonably expect to become a decent pilot, but most folks don't have the time or money for this.
4. Most drones are very unstable.  A single wind gust is often enough to drive the drone off course or knock the drone out of the air.
5. The control software for many drones is absolutely horrible.  It does well enough for basic drones that the software has been optimized to control, but any serious modifications (like adding a camera) will effectively render the drone unable to be flown by the software.  When the software suffers a control problem--notice the use of "when"--the drone will drop like a rock and almost certainly shatter on the ground.  (Many drone flight programs suffer critical control failures at least once a flight.)
6. Many of these problems can be solved by creating your own custom built drone, but that typically requires a degree of technical skill that most individuals do not demonstrate or simply don't have.  All the individuals I know that have successfully created their own custom-built drones all have backgrounds in electrical engineering, save one.  He was a military avionics technician.
7. DARPA has recently committed to developing a practical drone that offers imaging capabilities.  DARPA has some of the brightest researchers available, and a well-known willingness to reject research projects that it does not consider worth its time.  DARPA is expecting to have to develop new technology to make this possible.

 

At the end of the day, which seems more probable?  A person investing months to years and probably thousands of dollars to develop the technical resources to solve a problem that some incredibly bright researchers consider to be the greatest challenge of their careers?  Or a person taking a few seconds to start a private browsing session on the computer, perform a quick search, and possibly wiping up afterwards?  Which is more probable?  That we are all going to suddenly find drones hovering outside our windows waiting for us to open the blinds?  Or that the media is doing what it does with everything else, namely take something that is relatively insignificant and blow it out of proportion for the sake of driving up ratings?

 

Admittedly, there is a perfectly reasonable challenge to this argument.  "What happens when those practical drones are widely available?"  It's a legitimate question.  However, what gets forgotten in all this debate is that the FAA already has regulations concerning drone usage, and while they don't specifically address the issue of privacy, they actually do a wonderful job protecting people's privacy.  The FAA has three basic rules a drone operator must follow.  First, the drone must fly below 400 feet.  Second, the operator must maintain line of sight with the drone at all times.  Third, and most importantly, the drone must not be operated in the vicinity of humans or human structures.  The FAA never bothered to define what it meant by "vicinity" but most practical interpretations have settled on "a circle with a radius equal to the maximum practical flight distance of the drone."  In other words, if your drone can fly for 20 minutes at 3 mph, you can be the only human or human structure in a 1 mile radius.  The examples in the LA Times article would be illegal if the FAA was asked to enforce its own regulations against these individuals.  And who has access to a cheap, lightweight camera that can clearly see a human over a mile away, all while vibrating hundreds of times a second?

 

Is it time that we start thinking about the role of drones in the future?  I think most reasonable individuals would agree with this.  Are drones going to bring about the privacy apocalypse that the media is predicting?  Probably not.

[Meg 368]

For those who haven't seen a drone video 

 

The guy who was flying this isn't anyone special; he is just an Amazon employee.

[hym 358]

For those who haven't seen a

The guy who was flying this isn't anyone special; he is just an Amazon employee.

We don't really have a background on the guy flying the drone. As far as we know, he may well be one of the people helping develop Amazon's delivery drones, in which case he would be anything but an average individual.

The other issue is that, were the FAA enforcing its own regulations, that guy would be in a lot of trouble for flying that close to a building.

[Meg 368]

True.

 

You do realize that you are encouraging me to buy one so I can see how long it takes me to get good at flying it?  

 

Unfortunately I live in a densely populated area near restricted airspace so that's probably a really bad idea.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Temptation should be put behind you.  Not nearly as much fun as skiing down the trails at Whistler.

[hym 358]

You do realize that you are encouraging me to buy one so I can see how long it takes me to get good at flying it?  

 

Bad Meg!  No drone for you!  </soup nazi references>

 

 

 

Unfortunately I live in a densely populated area near restricted airspace so that's probably a really bad idea.

 

Probably so.

 

At the same time, we both know that this is an issue that must be addressed sooner or later.  Drones may not reach the ubiquity of cell phones, but they are going to become much more common place in the future.  It would make sense to try to craft some common sense regulations before things get out of hand.  My point of contention is that the media is promoting the idea that drones are the end of privacy as we know it.  Using this as the call to arms for regulation is missing a huge chunk of the issue, and probably going to lead to some incredibly screwed up regulation.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

This is going to be similar to the post 9/11 scramble to legislate badly.  Various legislative bodies will jump into the fray without sufficient research and information with the result that there will be a mish-mash of state and federal legislation complete with conflicts that will justify the existence of even more lawyers for another century.

 

As Will Rogers once said "I don't make jokes.  I just watch the government and report the facts".

[Duke87 1,070]

They say you don't have a reasonable expectation of privacy in public. The police station incident does make us ask questions about what does or doesn't qualify as "in public", though. Due to there being a fence, a person on the street would not be able to see what is going on in that parking lot. With the assistance of a drone, all of a sudden this is possible.

 

But then, it would have already been possible from an upper-story window of a nearby building. I would have to argue that if you are physically outside, even if you are in a fenced in yard or what have you, the "reasonable expectation of privacy" principle does not apply.

 

The cops, of course, don't like the idea that they're being filmed since them being on camera now means it will be caught and potentially become a viral video if they do something that violates protocol. Drone-based or not, the proliferation of cameras now means that police departments face an unprecedented level of public scrutiny. Now a cop when faced with a tough decision has to consider not only whether it is the right thing to do, but how it will look on video. This makes some departments uncomfortable and I can see how it might in some cases make the cops' job more difficult.

 

But regardless of who's on candid camera, privacy isn't about the device, it's about how the device is used. Yes, you can spy on stuff with a drone. You can also do it with binoculars, or even your own eyes. All having a drone does is increase the number of things you can conceivably spy on.

 

If someone is being a perv with their drone, the proper response is to prosecute them the same as you would if they were being a perv by any other means, not to ban the device.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Quite right.  There are sufficient 'Peeping Tom' statutes on the books already.

 

However, the point about police having to be ultra cautious in 'public' behaviour is truly a shame.  The shame is that prior behaviour has lead to this public opinion.  Cops are sometimes (too often) examples of the adage 'power corrupts...'.  Very careful psychological profiling must be done as part of the induction process for police and should also be part of their on-going evaluation.  Police candidates with tendencies to violence should be excluded from the force.  And may the force be with us.