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“The agency’s refusal to establish privacy standards is inconsistent with this mandate.” “Congress mandated that the FAA come up with a comprehensive plan to integrate drones into the airspace,” he said.
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“Commercial operators are free to collect data on people in public with little to no restriction on the information they collect, how they use it, or who they share it with,” said Jeramie Scott, an attorney with EPIC. Congress did not mention privacy specifically, but advocates have argued that the prevalence and surveillance capabilities of drones makes regulating privacy an essential feature of drone safety. Ironically, Feinstein is one of Congress’s foremost defenders of NSA surveillance.ĭue to the frequency of drone crashes and near misses, Congress in 2012 required the FAA to develop a “comprehensive plan” for the integration of commercial and private drones into U.S. She said that for her, it raised “major” privacy concerns. “I’m in my home and there’s a demonstration out front, and I go to peek out the window and there’s a drone facing me,” she explained in an interview with 60 Minutes.
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Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., that they had to be regulated. The stalking capability of drones even persuaded Sen. According the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), some drones can track up to 65 targets across an area as wide as 65 miles. Drones can be equipped with sophisticated imaging technology like Gigapixel cameras, infrared sensors, and facial recognition technology. There are also few legal restrictions on the surveillance or data-retention abilities of commercial drones.
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In 2013, the Congressional Research Service warned that drones could be used for “stalking, harassment, voyeurism, and wiretapping.” In 2014, Business Insider reported on a real example: a Seattle woman who was being stalked through the windows of her high-rise apartment. The rise of drones gives both hobbyists and corporations access to a relatively inexpensive surveillance technology. More than 180 groups raised privacy concerns through the agency’s public commenting process, but the FAA decided that its “long-standing mission … as a safety agency” does not include privacy, and that “it would be overreaching for the FAA to enact regulations concerning privacy rights.” The Federal Aviation Administration on Tuesday released regulations on the use of drones in American airspace, spelling out in more than 600 pages rules that will take effect in August relating to weight, speed, altitude, certification for commercial users, and other flight restrictions.īut despite recognizing that drones “pose risks to individual privacy,” the FAA declined to issue any privacy regulations at all.
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