The FAA Creates Thin Privacy Guidelines For The Nation's First Domestic Drone "Test Sites"

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http://www.opednews.com/articles/The-FAA-Creates-Thin-Priva-by-Electronic-Frontie-Domestic-Drones_Drone-Spying-131211-354.html



The FAA Creates Thin Privacy Guidelines For The Nation's First Domestic Drone "Test Sites"
OpEdNews Op Eds 12/12/2013 at 07:00:03
By Electronic Frontier Foundation

Commercial unmanned aerial systems are set to start flying over US airspace in 2015. In November the Federal Aviation Administration released its final privacy rules for the six drone "test sites" that the agency will use to evaluate how drones will be integrated into domestic air traffic. These new privacy requirements were issued just days after Senator Markey (D-MA) introduced a new bill, the Drone Aircraft Privacy and Transparency Act, intended to codify essential privacy and transparency requirements within the FAA's regulatory framework for domestic drones and drone test sites.

In 2012 Obama signed the Federal Aviation Administration Modernization and Reform Act, which mandated that the FAA implement "test sites" to fly domestic drones before opening the door to nationwide regulations and licensing for commercial drone flying. 24 states have applied to be FAA drone test sites. While the FAA's rules do establish minimal transparency guidelines for the new drone test sites, the new rules apply only to the test sites and do not apply to the drones that are already authorized to fly.

The new transparency rules require each test site operator to create, post, and enforce its own privacy policy, as well as set up "a mechanism to receive and consider comments from the public." The FAA rules further state that test sites must require all drone operators to establish "a written plan for the operator's use and retention of data collected by the UAS." Although the FAA's rules require the test site privacy policies to be made available to the public, there seems to be no similar requirement for the UAS operators' "written plans." There also appears to be no FAA oversight for these transparency rules -- the rules basically call for the test sites to police themselves.

While we appreciate the steps the FAA has taken so far, the agency could and should go further to require similar transparency from all drone operators. The FAA has already authorized almost 1,500 permits for domestic drones since 2007, but, despite our two Freedom of Information Act lawsuits for drone data, we still don't know much about where these drones are flying and what data they are collecting .