Privacy obligations and legal risks of drones. Privacy obligations and legal risks of drones Giulio Coraggio on 15 January, 2015 - 8:33 am in Internet of Things Privacy breaches and potential liabilities might increase as a consequence of the usage of drones that represent a massive resource in a number of different sectors, but might also trigger some “new” unexpected legal risks. Drones were initially used only in the military sector. However, the possibility to rely on them for instance for the delivery of drugs in areas that cannot be reached by normal vehicles, to monitor farm fields or plants or even for the delivery of products purchased on an e-commerce portal might make them an additional actor of our day-by-day life in our “smart” cities. Drones are part of Internet of Things projects whose estimated value has been recently increased by Cisco to $19 trillion by 2020.
Are drones a privacy threat? Which risks for individuals and our cities? We will see the regulatory developments of the matter. Welcome to Forbes. A Drone Scholar Answers the Big Questions About Amazon's Plans. After Amazon's Jeff Bezos announced that his company wanted to deliver packages with small unmanned aerial vehicles, many people have questioned the viability and wisdom of the idea. Yesterday, we got one optimistic perspective from Andreas Raptopoulos, an entrepreneur who founded Matternet, which is developing drone-delivery technology. But there are many other ways to answer the questions that I posed to Raptopoulos. So, today, we bring you an interview with the University of Washington's Ryan Calo, who has become a leading authority on the ethical and policy implications of emerging technologies. Specifically, he's focused on the problems at the nexus of drones and privacy in recent months.
To offer the most intriguing parallels, I tried to keep my questions to Calo as similar to the ones as I posed to Raptopoulos as possible. What rationale do companies like Amazon and Matternet give for creating drone-delivery networks? Some people are saying Mr. Is there actually an efficiency bonus? Ten Myths About Drones | Ryan Calo. Unmanned aerial vehicles (“UAVs”), often called “drones,” are coming to American skies.
In February, President Obama signed a law that requires the Federal Aviation Administration to pave the way for public agencies and, eventually, private companies, to fly drones within the United States. The proliferation of domestic drones has been preceded by a proliferation of news stories about the technology — and of some misconceptions regarding what drones are, and how they might be used. A law professor and a professor of electrical engineering, we’ve identified ten commonly held myths related to the technology and legal framework involved in drones and their use. Myth #1: A model airplane is a drone. A drone is an unmanned aircraft that can fly autonomously—that is, without a human in control.
By contrast, model airplanes are largely flown within visual line of sight and in the presence of an operator who watches and maintains control of the airplane during flight. Privacy obligations and legal risks of drones. European Commission Finds Existing Technology Neutral Regulations Adequate For Drone Privacy. Drones And The Right To Privacy. Submitted by James E. Miller of the Ludwig von Mises Institute of Canada, On August 6th, the small town of Deer Trail, Colorado is set to vote on an ordinance that will permit the hunting of unmanned surveillance drones. The author of the ordinance, Phillip Steel, claims the gesture is “symbolic.” In an interview with a local ABC News affiliate, Steel attested that he does “not believe in the idea of a surveillance society.” The Florida Legislature recently passed a law barring federal government drones from “gathering evidence or other information” on citizens of the state.
A handful of other American states are pursuing measures to limit the spying operations of Uncle Sam’s unmanned aerial vehicles. The pushback against Washington’s snoop activities is a nice development. A vast security state is coming, and it will not be limited to the United States. All the while, the political class gives an assurance that the technological innovation will not be abused.
A Drone Scholar Answers the Big Questions About Amazon's Plans. Des paquets livrés par drones d'ici cinq ans ? The Most Terrifying Drone Video Yet. Drone / privacy. WATCH: He Places A Bar Of Ivory Soap In The Microwave. A Minute Later, Things Get Out Of Control. [VIDEO] Facebook drones in the sky? Police use drones to spot grow-ops in Halton Region. TORONTO - Look up, look way up. Was it a bird? Was it a spy plane? Not a bird, but definitely the latter was soaring over Halton Region, police revealed Thursday. What police for the first time flew over Milton and Halton Hills on Wednesday was a pot-spotting drone — which detected secret rural grow-ops that netted $744,000 worth of illegal weed, Sgt.
Dave Cross said. Drug and morality plus guns and gangs officers kept their feet on the ground as the covert, unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) took to the skies to snoop out marijuana crops. The battery-powered UAV, which fits into a backpack, “was able to take aerial photographs of what it was looking at and transmitted them remotely back to an operator,” Cross said. No one was tending 14 raided cultivated weed sites but officers harvested 744 plants worth $1,000 each. The Halton Region force has tested and used an Aeryon Labs Inc. While the Scout looks like a toy helicopter, “it’s certainly cutting-edge technology,” Cross said. Why Drones Could End up Being Good for Privacy Law | Ryan Calo. On the front page of the Los Angeles Times this weekend was a story about local police calling in military drones -- in this case, the Predator B -- to help apprehend civilians.
Mark my words, this is just the beginning. Drones are simply too effective, too cost efficient, for police, firefighters, and even the private sector to ignore. Imagine what drones would do for the lucrative paparazzi industry, for instance, especially coupled with commercially available facial recognition technology. So why isn't the sky already filled with drones? The Federal Aviation Administration has for years restricted the use of unmanned aerial systems absent a waiver. A few folks in the public sector have sought them. (The state of Oklahoma sought a blanket waiver of the drone ban for eighty miles of airspace.)
Although the FAA's rules stand in the way of many uses of drones, United States privacy law does not. If anything, observations by drones may occasion less scrutiny than manned aerial vehicles. The Drone as Privacy Catalyst. Associated today with the theatre of war, the widespread domestic use of drones for surveillance seems inevitable. Existing privacy law will not stand in its way. It may be tempting to conclude on this basis that drones will further erode our individual and collective privacy. Yet the opposite may happen. Drones may help restore our mental model of a privacy violation. They could be just the visceral jolt society needs to drag privacy law into the twenty-first century. Samuel Warren and Louis Brandeis knew what a privacy violation looked like: yellow journalists armed with newly developed “instantaneous photographs” splashing pictures of a respectable wedding on the pages of every newspaper.
Their influential 1890 article The Right To Privacy crystallized an image of technology-fueled excess, which the authors leveraged to jump-start privacy law in the United States. But what do privacy violations look like today? One good candidate is the drone.