How to Travel With a Drone Without Causing an International Incident

(Source: Slate.com)  

It’s the newest travel trend: carting around a portable, camera-bearing drone while on the road. Suitable for selfies, dramatic landscape photos, and other eminently Instagram-able content, backpack-size drones equipped with action cameras are an increasingly common component of vacationers’ luggage.

Cool as those YouTube videos of golden temples and snowy mountains may be, drone travel is a practice that can have outsize consequences if things go wrong. German visitor and video journalist Michael Altenhenne found that out the hard way on Feb. 14, when he flew his DJI Phantom 2 drone close to the strictly guarded Royal Palace in the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh—apparently disturbing Queen Mother Norodom Monineath Sihanouk, who reportedly was doing her evening exercises behind the palace’s gold-painted walls.

After the queen mother raised the alarm, according to local reports, Altenhenne was apprehended by authorities and his drone confiscated. Annoyed city officials decided by Feb. 16 that drones would henceforth be banned within the Phnom Penh city limits. Only drone flights preapproved by City Hall authorities will be permitted. It’s not clear what the turn-around time for that approval would be, and there’s no indication what criteria will be used to evaluate applications.

Phnom Penh municipal spokesman Long Dimanche denied that the new ban was solely due to the evening disturbance of the queen mother, telling the Cambodia Daily newspaper that the ban would help to protect privacy and to prevent the usage of drones by terrorists. Perhaps, but considering that drones had gone completely unregulated in Cambodia up until the incident, Altenhenne’s ill-fated flight provided a good excuse for authorities to act. Even Dimanche admitted that the incident with the queen mother was “one reason” the ban was implemented.

It’s not as bad as it could have been. The authoritarian Cambodian government has little love for journalism and humanitarian investigations, and could have easily banned drones across the entire country, as was recently done in increasingly dictatorial Thailand. Drones can still be sold and purchased in Phnom Penh, and drone usage in Cambodia outside of the capital remains legal for now.

But the ban inside Cambodia’s largest and most politically important city is still a major blow for many, including journalists, human rights monitors, filmmakers, and others dependent on drone technology for their work.

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