Drone-flyers back call for national regulation

Certified unmanned aerial vehicle operators have provisionally backed a call for national laws to deal with the threat to privacy from drones.

Worries about UAVs hovering over people’s back yards and recording their personal lives prompted a review of the industry by a parliamentary committee and the release this week of the Eyes in the Sky report.

The recommendation for national privacy laws to be expanded to cover new technology such as drones was one of six made by the House of Representatives standing committee on social policy and legal affairs as it considered the privacy and safety aspects of remotely piloted aircraft (RPA).

The report said the use of drones raised privacy issues for Australians and “the problem will deepen as RPAs become cheaper and the cameras and sensors they carry become more sensitive’’.

It called on the federal government to look at introducing legislation by July next year that would protect against privacy-invading technologies such as drones.

It said this could include a tort of serious invasion of privacy as recommended by the Australian Law Reform Commission.

It also recommended harmonised national surveillance laws covering the use of various surveillance and tracking devices.

There are no rules governing the sales or importation of drones in Australia and the committee found it hard to tell how many were being used beyond those employed by certified operators.

But it noted RPAs were poised to revolutionise industries such as agriculture, science and media.

“All the same, we must set out clear rules that govern how the police, governments, businesses and the public use of drones,’’ standing committee chairman George Christensen said.

Police use of drones also came under scrutiny, although the Australian Federal Police and the Queensland Police Services, which has two of the machines, said they were not looking at their use for surveillance.

The committee recommended the federal government review the laws regulating police use of surveillance drones by federal agencies and that the federal government use the late 2014 meeting of COAG’s law, crime and community safety council to introduce action to simplify and harmonise surveillance laws across jurisdictions.

The report comes after a series of mishaps involving small drones as they have become increasingly available to consumers.

These include a quad copter that crashed into Sydney Harbour Bridge, an RPA that allegedly struck a triathlete in Western Australia in April and another that forced a rescue helicopter to take evasive action to avoid a collision in March.

The Civil Aviation Safety Authority is looking at new rules that allow the unregulated commercial use under certain circumstances of drones weighing less than 2kg.

The committee called on CASA to broaden future consultation to include industry, “such as real estate, photography, media and agriculture’’ and recreational users. It said CASA should work with the Australian Privacy Commissioner to review the adequacy of rules governing drones and report by mid-2016.

The Australian Certified UAV Operators Association backed the report’s recommendations but expressed concern that the committee had stepped outside its terms of reference to support the proposed deregulation of the sub 2kg category.

“Deregulation of the sub-2kg category of RPAs will remove the capacity of effectively ensuring that RPAs do not become a widespread privacy nuisance and do not jeopardise the safety of the entire aviation sector,’’ ACUO president Joseph Urli said. “It is the sub-2kg class of systems, operated by hobbyists, which are already the primary source of near-miss incidents involving manned aviation, and of emerging privacy complaints.’’

Originally published as Drone-flyers back call for national regulation