The US government made big changes to drone law that have seen it at loggerheads with Google and its Parent company, Alphabet. The ruling states that almost every drone in US airspace will need to broadcast their locations, and the location of their pilots, so as to “address safety; national security; and law enforcement concerns; regarding the further integration of these aircraft into the airspace of the United States”.
Google’s drone delivery subsidiary, Wing, responded to the rule with a post via Reuters titled “Broadcast-Only Remote Identification of Drones May Have Unintended Consequences for American Consumers”. The post puts forward the argument that the FAA’s decision to have drones broadcast their location could enable a third party to track your movements. From which they can know where you live, and where and when you receive packages, and other examples.
“American communities would not accept this type of surveillance of their deliveries or taxi trips on the road. They should not accept it in the sky,” Wing says.
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Wing’s position is not against broadcasting the location of the drones, the company prefers to send the data through the internet instead of broadcasting it locally.
Amusingly, the FAA had originally proposed to broadcast the location data over the internet in December 2019; proposing Remote ID rules, before it reconsidering because commenters gave a plethora of reasons why it isn’t a good idea.
The objections at the time included and were not limited to: the cost of adding a cellular modem to a drone, the cost of paying for a monthly cellular data plan, the lack of reliable cellular coverage across the entirety of the US, the cost of paying a third-party data broker to track and store that data, the possibility of that third-party data broker getting breached; and the possibility of that data broker or network getting DDoS’d, grounding drones in the US.
Google and Wing actually prefer the internet-based drone Remote ID law the FAA initially proposed. This is because it; “allows a drone to be identified as it flies over without necessarily sharing that drone’s complete flight path or flight history and that information, which can be more sensitive, is not displayed to the public and only available to law enforcement if they have proper credentials; and a reason to need that information”.
The FAA is however clear that broadcast Remote ID is just a first step, and an “initial framework”. This may mean that the regulator could change the rules depending on how effective they turn out to be.
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