Drones – a new video surveillance technology and our privacy

Posted by: raminta 9 years, 7 months ago

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Now it is not too difficult to imagine that you shop online and your purchases are brought at your home in less than one hour by a small unmanned aircraft. Experiments performed by Amazon are a proof of this possibility: in March 2015 Amazon obtained a permission form the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to test unmanned aerial vehicles (drones) for commercial purposes (delivery of purchases). Amazon plans that drones will fly at a speed of 80 km/h and will carry purchases weighing less than 2 kg. The drones will be able to avoid any obstacles appearing on their route and will reach their destination in half an hour.

The use of drones and threats to privacy protection

While drones are still being tested by Amazon, they are already being used in military zones, farming, creation of movies, journalism and etc. The US authorities are using them for tracking criminals and surveilling the border with Mexico. Most probably drones soon will help sport fans to watch matches, will save the lives of drowning persons, and will even assist clients in bars and shops.

Currently anyone who wants to own a drone can buy it online or in a shop for less than 100 euros without any restrictions or specific conditions.

Drones, which are offered on sale, are usually controlled remotely and feature cameras able to take photos and videos. Soon the controller of a drone will be able to watch live video images taken by these cameras, zoom into them, recognise a person or a movement, and count persons gathered in one place. Drones will be equipped with Wi-Fi, microphones, recording systems, and GPS. Such technical qualities will largely facilitate the video surveillance performed by law enforcement authorities, which for now is mainly carried out with video cameras. They will also be useful for the investigation of crimes and will give everyone a great chance to see unseen places from a different perspective.

Nevertheless, it should be considered that controllers of drones will get a unique possibility to literally track and surveil you. They will not run into any obstacles while flying in or through your private household or property and recording all visual information and sounds. It is quite obvious that drones will increase the threat to your privacy protection as you will not be clearly informed about the surveillance, you will not know if a drone is recording your conversation or is trying to identify you or your car. And most importantly, you will not know who is controlling the drone and performing all these activities. Many privacy advocates now call drones as "a modern and the most controversial tool for an invasive surveillance".

Drones in the US

The use of drones in the US has already risen many public discussions, which led to the governmental decision to impose legal regulations on this matter. The FAA has drafted rules applicable to drones weighing less than 25 kg and used for leisure activities. These rules forbid to fly drones at night, below 400 feet (122 meters) and out of the eyesight of a controller. A drone cannot fly over unprotected persons or moving vehicles, and must remain at least 25 feet (7,6 meters) away from individuals and vulnerable property. It cannot fly near or over sensitive infrastructure or property (e.g. power stations, water treatment facilities, government facilities, etc.) and cannot surveil or photograph persons in areas where there is an expectation of privacy without the individual’s consent. The FAA has also promised to draft rules on the commercial use of drones by the end of this year. In the meantime, the Washington state has passed a law, which imposes a duty to controllers of drones to inform persons who are being filmed and to get their consent.

It is worth mentioning that the US President Barack Obama has recently experienced the misuse of drones: one evening a drone controlled by an intelligence official accidentally landed on the lawn of the White House. Such event raised the concern that the White House is exposed to the danger of malicious use of drones, therefore the President Barack Obama has published a Memorandum stressing that the US has to impose strict rules on the use of drones ensuring high privacy protection standards, which should be checked every three year. Most probably as a result of this event and the Memorandum, Verizon together with NASA began developing a technology which will monitor flying drones, will automatically “geo-fence” them in order to keep them away from sensitive areas, will ground drones in bad weather, and will help them to avoid occuring obstacles. It is expected that NASA will test this technology this summer, while Verizon hopes to finalise it by 2019.

The use of drones in Europe and Lithuania

In the EU there are no specific regulations on the use of drones, thus the European Commission took the initiative and prepared the Communication "A new era for aviation. Opening the aviation market to the civil use of remotely piloted aircraft systems in a safe and sustainable manner" and presented it to the European Parliament and the European Council. Several weeks ago it was also announced that the European Commission plans to draft regulations for the commercial use of drones in this fall, and the members of the European Parliament have formed a working group on this matter with the MEP Jacqueline Foster in the leading place, who is supposed to draft a report. It is worth noting that the European Commission has publicly declared to be aware that the use of drones may be related to the collection of personal data and may raise ethical, privacy and data protection threats in cases of surveillance, monitoring, drafting of maps and video recording. The European Commission has stressed that the users of drones should be aware of data protection regulations and the national data protection authorities should monitor the privacy protection situation continuously. Such position gives a hope that the privacy concerns will be taken into consideration in the upcoming regulations drafted by the European Commission.

The use of drones has also been discussed by the EU member states representatives who on the 6th of March, 2015, have adopted the Riga declaration, which highlights the necessity to ensure sufficient protection of human rights in the rules regulating the use of drones. The EU representatives agreed that the controller of a drone should be considered responsible for the misuse of a drone and should be identified by installed identity microchips or by a public register. They also declared that the data protection authorities should draft rules ensuring effective data protection for the use of drones.

The European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) has also intervened on this matter and has published the opinion on the Communication. The EDPS noted that in Europe there is a common practise allowing persons to expect their private life to be protected even in public places, therefore specific technical charateristics of drones (e. g. zooming, microphones and voice recording systems) should be used carefully. According to the EDPS, the household exception, allowing not to apply personal data protection regulations if the processing of data is done for personal or household purposes, in many cases will not apply for the use of drones; an example can be a case when photos or videos, taken by a drone in a private household, are disseminated to an indefinite number of persons, rather than to a limited community of friends, family members or acquaintances. The EDPS also believes that drones offered on sale should have "privacy notices", which would inform buyers about the data protection requirements. In addition, the controllers of drones should be easily identifiable and should notify the data processing to national data protection authorities.

In Europe, France and the United Kingdom are considered to be the leaders for the use of drones: there are 1600 registered controllers of drones in France, while in the UK more than 50,000 drones are used continuously. France is still the most advanced country in Europe for the regulation of drones: it has imposed a duty to the controllers of drones to register and foresees imprisonment or a fine of € 75,000 for the illegal use of drones. In the meantime, the UK is only discussing about the registration of the controllers and other data protection rules for the use of drones.

In Lithuania the use of drones is regulated by the rules "On the Use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles". According to the rules, drones which weigh less than 25 kg do not need a permission from the Civil Aviation Administration and a registration. Drones may fly in places which are not forbidden by local municipalities, and outside densely populated quarters and open gathering areas. They should not fly further than 1,000 meters from the controller and should keep a distance of 50 meters from vehicles, buildings and people. It is worth mentioning that the rules still do not imply any liability for violations; nevertheless, the personal privacy is protected by the Law on Legal Protection of Personal Data, which sets general rules on video surveillance and sanctions for violations.

This article has been prepared and published in cooperation with the Human Rights Monitoring Institute, a Lithuanian NGO defending human rights.

Image courtesy of jacinta lluch valero, Flickr.com

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