Understanding the drone epidemic

Drones are aircraft that have no onboard, human pilot. Through the twentieth century, piloted aircraft made far greater progress than drones. During the twenty-first century, on the other hand, changes in both drone technologies and drone economics have been much more rapid. Particularly in the case of small, inexpensive devices, the question arises as to whether existing regulatory frameworks can cope. To answer that question, it is necessary to document the nature and characteristics of drones, the dimensions across which they vary, the purposes to which they are put, and the impacts that they appear likely to have. The analysis concludes that careful consideration is needed of the adequacy of controls over the impacts of drones on two important values – public safety, and behavioural privacy.     

What drones inherit from their ancestors

Any specific technology derives attributes from the generic technologies of which it is an instance. A drone is a flying computer. It is dependent on local data communications from its onboard sensors and to its onboard effectors, and on telecommunications links over which it receives data-feeds and command-feeds from terrestrial and perhaps airborne sources and from satellites. A drone acts on the world, and is therefore a robot. The remote pilots, and the operators of drone facilities such as cameras, depend on high-tech tools that interpret data that display transmitted, enhanced and generated image and video, and that enable the composition of commands. So drone operators are already cyborgs. Many drones carry cameras and are used for surveillance. Computing, data communications, robotics, cyborgisation and surveillance offer power and possibilities, but with them come disbenefits and risks. Critical literatures exist in relation to all of those areas. An inspection of those literatures should provide insights into the limitations of drones, and the impacts and implications arising from their use.     

The regulation of civilian drones' impacts on behavioural privacy

Surveillance technologies have burgeoned during the last several decades. To surveillance's promises and threats, drones add a new dimension, both figuratively and literally. An assessment of the impacts of drones on behavioural privacy identifies a set of specific threats that are created or exacerbated. Natural controls, organisational and industry self-regulation, co-regulation and formal laws are reviewed, both general and specific to various forms of surveillance. Serious shortfalls in the regulatory framework are identified. Remedies are suggested, together with means whereby they may come into being.