(Source: The Guardian)
California lawmakers have sided with privacy advocates to pass a bill that bans drones from flying lower than 350ft (106m) over private property.
If the bill is signed by Governor Jerry Brown it will create a no-fly zone and make it a trespass violation for someone to fly an unmanned aircraft or drone over private property below 350ft without the consent of the owner or tenant.
SB 142 passed a third reading on Monday in the California State Assembly despite pressure from drone users and manufactures who say the new law will stifle innovation in the growing industry.
“People should be able to sit in their backyards and be in their homes without worrying about drones flying right above them or peering in their windows,” said state senator Hannah-Beth Jackson, who authored the bill. “We need to balance innovation with personal and societal expectations.”
According to the National Conference on State Legislatures (NCSL), in 2015, 45 states considered 156 bills related to drones, and 18 states have passed legislation.
In May, Florida passed SB 766, prohibiting a person, state agency or political subdivision from using a drone to photograph people on their private property without their consent.
Jackson was inspired to propose the bill when she was vacationing in Hawaii in December and sitting on a friend’s private balcony.
“A neighbor’s drone flew right onto the balcony and was recording our conversation. It was very unsettling and so I started researching this issue,” said Jackson, a former prosecutor and the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
The bill doesn’t affect the “lawful activities of law enforcement personnel, employees of governmental agencies, or other public or private entities that may have the right to enter land by operating” a drone within someone’s private property.
Continue Reading at TheGuardian.com…
Alan is serial entrepreneur, active angel investor, and a drone enthusiast. He co-founded DRONELIFE.com to address the emerging commercial market for drones and drone technology. Prior to DRONELIFE.com, Alan co-founded Where.com, ThinkingScreen Media, and Nurse.com. Recently, Alan has co-founded Crowditz.com, a leader in Equity Crowdfunding Data, Analytics, and Insights. Alan can be reached at alan(at)dronelife.com
To our esteemed Senator Hannah-Beth Jackson and her colleagues in the CA State Capitol:
I would respectfully submit that you are going to kill the commercial drone video business in CA for no reason. The specifics of your bill do not take into account the realities of what a camera can see, from what distance and position, etc. Actually viewing video from these aircraft would change the parameters of people’s thinking. Each five feet up greatly diminishes what a typical drone can see and therefore record and/or transmit. Also, I do support the concept of hobbyists not flying low over people’s yards. However there is more to it.
How will an FAA Licensed Commercial Drone Pilot, shooting a real estate showcase video (or any other video such as small business commercials, in the vicinity of residential areas) for example, avoid flying over others homes? The realities are that getting consent is unlikely and very time consuming. In a gated community you are not even permitted to go door to door.
These are FAA Licensed Commercial Drone Companies you will kill off. They fly under VERY STRICT guidelines and record their flights and activity like any other commercial flight operation. Each “drone” they fly is registered with the FAA and has an “N” number corresponding to the owner (registration like a car has) under current regulations.
Yet if you actually look at such videos, they show no real detail of neighbors in their backyards and certainly there is no intent to invade privacy or spy. Only to operate within the confines of the License or Waiver. A drone hovering outside a window might be able to spy on someone inside but at 20 feet you cannot see anything of detail inside at all. We cannot fly in the dark either (under present rules). However the camera would see square miles at the altitudes you propose (350 feet AGL), not just a few surrounding homes… making the altitudes useless for showcasing homes and communities and most commercial video applications.
These types (and others) of videos are shot with time constraints (often only 1-2 days to complete including editing) and there is no logical way to realistically get permission from every home that might be in the cameras field of view! This is a growing business and it is also unlikely that any commercial licensed entity would jeopardize their license status by flying illegally or spying on people, etc.
Have you actually reviewed drone video from typical drones used for these types of operations to see the level of detail? You can’t see anything inside homes at 50 feet, even much less. However more importantly, commercial drone companies are Licensed by the FAA for what they do, heavily regulated in how they do it, and their purpose has nothing to do with invading privacy any more than Google earth which we all use every day to help us find addresses, see buildings, etc.
I URGE you to reconsider the language at AT LEAST carve out a provision for FAA part 333 Commercial Drone Services performing commercial work! Your bill would KILL off this rapidly expanding industry that is providing a very valuable service to real estate sales, golf courses, resorts, hotels, small and midsized businesses, etc. doing video work. None of these activities are “spying” on people or providing video with detailed images of people in private. We see less than an airplane does at 1000 feet AGL (Above Ground Level) when you actually look at what the camera records! I am a private pilot as well as a drone pilot and speak with accurate knowledge on this subject. Why is is that I can fly a plane or helicopter (which can be fitted with far better optics and camera qualities than the typical “less than 6 pound drone used for most small productions”) and be fine, but your law will counter my FAA authorization and make flight with a drone for commercial purposes illegal?
Most importantly, we just cannot fly that high and get the shot. Our optics and equipment cannot do it and that makes most of your 350-400 foot corridor USELESS for us. Real Estate and most commercial drone video is shot below 150 feet and in our case, mostly below 75 feet AGL. Our waiver to fly from the FAA is only valid BELOW 200 FEET AGL.
I BELIEVE IN THE INTENT of your bill and its value, as I greatly support our constitutional rights. However UNINTENDED consequences here are HUGE and type of flying affected here goes far beyond solving the problem you are after.
Thank you
Kurt von Strasser
Ascent Aerial Drone Video Productions
http://www/AscentDroneVideo.com
info@ascentdronevideo.com