According to the Federal Aviation Administration, drone sales are expected to increase from 2.5 million this year to a whopping 7 million by the year 2020. Although these sales may be fantastic news for drone makers, it also means there will soon be a need to create laws regarding drones flying over people’s private property. Should it be legal for drones to fly over your property without your consent? Should they have a certain distance limit from which they cannot fly close to people’s homes? Would there be a difference in privileges between commercial drones and drones used for casual purposes? Who should make these decisions: individual landowners or organizations like the Federal Aviation Administration? As usual, these kind of legalities have resulted in different camps of thought.
There are those like University of Miami law professor A. Michael Froomkin who believe people’s privacy is in fact at risk due to drones. According to Froomkin, drones shouldn’t be given the legal right to fly over private property without first acquiring each of the landowner’s consent. Because drones can film, record sounds, and listen in on Wi-Fi and other signals, flying them over private property is a clear violation of the Fourth Amendment rights regarding privacy and safety. He explains that just as homeowners have a horizontal curtilage, where property rights include grounds and buildings in the immediate vicinity of the homeowner’s land, property owners should also have a vertical curtilage. Nowadays, according to the FAA navigable airspace usually ends at 500 feet of the private property. According to Froomkin, the same should be applied to drones.
Then there are those like University of Washington assistant professor of law Ryan Calo who believe that decisions regarding where and when drones can fly should be made collectively, not by individual landowners. According to Calo, drones are the next frontier of aviation and, just like airplanes, should answer to the FAA’s navigable airspace regulations, not to property owners. Unlike Froomkin, Calo sees drones as an essential commercial tool. Companies, like Amazon, plan to use them and revolutionize the way they deliver their products. Journalists want to use them to cover breaking news faster. The health industry wants to use them to deliver emergency medication or even organs for transplant surgeries quicker. The possibilities are endless, hence placing regulations at the disposal of individuals’ hands could truly hinder the drones’ potential. Calo goes even further, explaining that attempting to get approval from each property owner to obtain a permit would be inefficient to the point of being impossible. Even apps like AirMap simply don’t have enough time or resources to fully complete such endeavors.
The drone verdict is still out, but suffice to say that government and industry leaders are already being faced with the legal implications of these decisions, and a crowded drone airspace is just around the corner. Considering that companies like Amazon and Google are already meeting with National Aeronautics and Space Administration to design an air-traffic-control system for drones, it seems like Calo may win this argument, after all.