ACLU:- FAA Plans to Carry Out Privacy Tests in Six Drone “Test Zones”
By Jay Stanley, Senior Policy Analyst, ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project
The FAA indicates that it plans to carry out privacy tests of drone technology as part of a “test site” program mandated by Congress, the agency revealed in a response to two lawmakers seeking information about drone privacy. Reps. Edward J. Markey (D, Mass.) and Joe Barton (R, Texas) released the FAA document yesterday, which was a response to an April letter from the two lawmakers about the agency’s efforts to address the privacy concerns surrounding domestic drones.
It has always been a question whether the FAA would step up and involve itself in privacy issues. In our report on domestic drones last year, we took the position that,
“Just as the FAA regulates drones to ensure that they are safe, so, too, should drones be regulated so they are not used in ways that infringe on privacy. The FAA’s primary purpose is protecting the physical safety of the national airspace, but its mandate also extends to “protecting individuals . . . on the ground,” and the courts have suggested that this mandate is a broad one. Therefore, the FAA’s obligation to protect individuals on the ground should include protecting the privacy that Americans have traditionally enjoyed and rightly expect. If the agency refuses to do so, or is found by the courts to have limited powers in that area, then Congress should step in to directly enact any additional protections that are needed to preserve that privacy.”
