Drones and Data: A Limited Impact on Privacy

Concerns about drones and their impact on privacy are misplaced. Most of the scenarios discussed in the academic literature and policy commentary simply assume that drones operate in a unique way. These discussions of drones and privacy have left the antecedent question unexamined—precisely how do drones impact privacy? This Article is the first to clearly define the operational parameters of drones that impact privacy in a unique way. From this precise definition, we learn that drones operate in very few spaces that allow them to capture data inaccessible to other technologies. In short, how drones operate has a limited impact on privacy. Drones, however, are primarily data collection devices. By tracing the flow of data into and from a drone, it becomes clear that many parties potentially have access to drone-captured data. The privacy impact of drones, therefore, must be understood in the light of the third-party doctrine. Once a drone captures data about a person, that person has almost no recourse to prevent its sharing and distribution. Drones have also stirred the emotions of legislators. Hundreds of provisions in state and local laws purport to address the privacy concerns presented by drones and their data. This Article analyzes these laws and demonstrates that very few actually address the unique privacy impact of drones and their data flow. Furthermore, these laws interact with the third-party doctrine in a manner that mutes almost all privacy protections. Concerns about the privacy impact of drones, therefore, should focus on either limiting data capture by drones or changing the U.S. privacy doctrines

Flying Robots and Privacy in Canada

Drones have been a hot topic in recent years particularly when used in war and in domestic police operations. Drones have also attracted attention because of highprofile plans to use them for package delivery, among other things. While the glamourous and future uses of drones catch media attention, drones are already being used in the private sector for more mundane purposes including surveying, infrastructure inspection and real estate sales promotion. While the privacy threats of military and police drones are widely discussed, privacy concerns of private drones have attracted much less consideration. This paper looks at the privacy risks of private drones in Canada. It begins with an overview of the uses of private drones and their regulation in Canada. Regulation of drones in Canada is quite permissive and does not address the privacy risks. The paper then presents several privacy theories and a deeper discussion of two problems caused by technology such as drones: data aggregation and erosion of privacy in public. The paper then considers some theoretical and practical legal protections that might be used to protect against drone privacy invasion. The more theoretical include the torts of trespass and nuisance. The more practical include the tort of intrusion upon seclusion and the Personal Information and Electronic Documents Act. The paper concludes that the dominant theories of privacy embedded in Canadian law are not fully prepared for the challenge of drones, though the tort of intrusion upon seclusion holds some promise for the future

Drones and the Fourth Amendment: Redefining Expectations of Privacy

Drones have gained notoriety as a weapon against foreign terrorist targets; yet, they have also recently made headlines as an instrument for domestic surveillance. With their sophisticated capabilities and continuously decreasing costs, it is not surprising that drones have attracted numerous consumers—most notably, law enforcement. Courts will likely soon have to decipher the limits on the government’s use of drones under the Fourth Amendment. But it is unclear where, or even whether, drones would fall under the current jurisprudence. Because of their diverse and sophisticated designs and capabilities, drones might be able to maneuver through the Fourth Amendment’s doctrinal loopholes. This Note advocates analyzing drones under an adapted approach to the reasonable-expectation-of-privacy test in Katz v. United States. Courts should focus more on the test’s oft-neglected first prong—whether a person exhibited a subjective expectation of privacy—and analyze what information falls within the scope of that expectation, excluding information knowingly exposed to the plain view of the public. This analysis also considers instances when, although a subjective expectation exists, it may be impossible or implausible to reasonably exhibit that expectation, a dilemma especially relevant to an analysis of drones. Courts that adopt the recommended analysis would have a coherent and comprehensible approach to factually dynamic cases challenging the constitutionality of drone surveillance. Until then, the constitutional uncertainties of these cases will likely linger

Cities and Drones: What Cities Need to Know about Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs)

NLC's municipal guide, Cities and Drones, is designed to serve as a primer on drones for local officials, providing insight into the recently released federal rules relating to drone operation, as well as offering suggestions for how local governments can craft their own drone ordinances to encourage innovation while also protecting their cities.Drones have the potential to revolutionize many industries and city services, particularly as their technology advances. There are many applications for drones within the public sector at the local and state level. Drones can be used for law enforcement and firefighting, as rural ambulances, and for inspections, environmental monitoring, and disaster management. Any commercial arena that involves outdoor photography or visual inspection will likely be experimenting with drones in the near future, as will retailers who want to speed up package delivery.However, drones also present challenges. There are some safety issues, for instance, when operators fly their drones over people or near planes. City residents often have privacy concerns when any small device hovering nearby could potentially be taking photos or video. The FAA's final rule on drones left some opportunity for city governments to legislate on this issue. Rather than ban them outright, city officials should consider how this new technology might serve residents or enhance city services

The New Privacy Battle: How the Expanding Use of Drones Continues to Erode Our Concept of Privacy and Privacy Rights

The exciting, thriving and developing technology that everybody has been talking about recently is drones. Due to recent technological developments, which make drones an affordable and universal tool, drones have expanded out of military use and into domestic applications. The enactment of the FAA Modernization and Reform Act in 2012 further pushed for the development and expansion of drone use in the United States’ airspace, by requiring the FAA to license over 30,000 drone operators. While drone use has an unlimited potential for beneficial use within society, drone technology is not without risks. For example, drone use in domestic airspace raises the significant and undeniable risk of individual privacy invasions through the use of drones by both public entities and third parties. This article argues current common law and legislative protections of potential privacy invasions resulting from drone use are drastically insufficient as neither affords strong protection of an individual’s privacy from such sophisticated technology’s potential. The article concludes by recommending a federal baseline consumer protection act that would establish a reasonable level of protection for an individual’s privacy by ensuring drone use was being monitored from a privacy protection standpoint and limiting the use of drones in a way that would invade an individual’s privacy expectations

The Drone Wars: The Need for Federal Protection of Individual Privacy

Drones—also known as unmanned aerial vehicles—are lightweight, easy to use, and relatively inexpensive aircraft with a wide variety of applications. Drone popularity has recently exploded, with an estimated two million recreational drones sold in 2016 and analysts predicting that sales will increase to 4.3 million units sold annually by 2020. With this increased popularity comes increased concerns about how they will be used and who will fly them. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and state legislatures have created drone-specific legislation and rules governing drone use. However, these rules and regulations are more concerned with regulating drones with in relation to public lands and public safety rather than protecting privacy. To protect an individual’s privacy and make them feel secure in their home, new privacy legislation must be created to protect against drones’ unique technical and physical capabilities. This new legislation may be created by each state or by the FAA, with different approaches having their own benefits and drawbacks. However, to develop the most effective and comprehensive privacy scheme, the FAA should create a privacy regulation for individual states to implement through conditional preemption. This will provide a uniform privacy law that has the necessary enforcement mechanisms to protect individual privacy

Domestic Drone Surveillance: The Court’s Epistemic Challenge and Wittgenstein’s Actional Certainty

This article examines the domestic use of drones by law enforcement to gather information. Although the use of drones for surveillance will undoubtedly provide law enforcement agencies with new means of gathering intelligence, these unmanned aircrafts bring with them a host of legal and epistemic complications. Part I considers the Fourth Amendment and the different legal standards of proof that might apply to law enforcement drone use. Part II explores philosopher Wittgenstein’s notion of actional certainty as a means to interpret citizens' expectations of privacy with regard to their patterns of movement over time. Part III discusses how the theory of actional certainty can apply to the epistemic challenge of determining what is a “reasonable” expectation of privacy under the law. This Part also investigates the Mosaic Theory as a possible reading of the Fourth Amendment

Privaros: A Framework for Privacy-Compliant Delivery Drones

We present Privaros, a framework to enforce privacy policies on drones. Privaros is designed for commercial delivery drones, such as the ones that will likely be used by Amazon Prime Air. Such drones visit a number of host airspaces, each of which may have different privacy requirements. Privaros provides an information flow control framework to enforce the policies of these hosts on the guest delivery drones. The mechanisms in Privaros are built on top of ROS, a middleware popular in many drone platforms. This paper presents the design and implementation of these mechanisms, describes how policies are specified, and shows that Privaros's policy specification can be integrated with India's Digital Sky portal. Our evaluation shows that a drone running Privaros can robustly enforce various privacy policies specified by hosts, and that its core mechanisms only marginally increase communication latency and power consumption