Representative Ed Markey (D-MA) has proposed a bill that would require the Federal Aviation Administration to establish privacy safeguards for drone operators. The bill also aims to create limits on data collection by law enforcement agencies that use drones in the field.
Markey, who is co-Chair of the Congressional Bi-Partisan Privacy Caucus, submitted the discussion draft of the Drone Aircraft Privacy and Transparency Act of 2012 on August 1.
Markey’s bill highlights the impending integration of drones into domestic airspace by October 2015, as required by the Federal Aviation Administration Modernization and Reform Act signed by President Obama this February, as well as acknowledges that government agencies at all levels have increasingly been using unmanned aircraft, as have “businesses and private individuals.”
While the bill acknowledges that there are undoubtedly beneficial applications of the technology, it also emphasizes the glaring potential “for unmanned aircraft system technology to enable invasive and pervasive surveillance without adequate privacy protections.” This potential for misuse and abuse of the technology for surveillance of private citizens is exacerbated by a complete lack of “explicit privacy protections or public transparency measures with respect to such system technology.” Markey’s bill aims to fill that void when it comes to privacy protections from drone surveillance.
If passed, the drone privacy bill would require a study by the Secretary of Transportation (who oversees the FAA), the Secretary of Commerce, the Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Homeland Security into “potential threats to privacy protections posed by the integration of unmanned aircraft systems into the national airspace system.”
The bill would also prohibit the FAA from granting drone operation licenses to entities, governmental or private, without a data collection statement from the license applicant. Such a data collection statement would include information regarding: chain-of-command to authorize the use of drones; locations of operation; maximum flight times; whether the drone in question will collect information or data about individuals or groups.
If drones will be used to collect data on individuals or groups, the operator must further indicate: circumstances under which this information will be collected; what kind of information will be collected; how such information will be used, disclosed, sold and stored. The data collection statement must also include an estimation of possible impact the drone in question may have on individual privacy and the steps operators will take to mitigate those impacts.
Markey’s bill would further require law enforcement agencies and their subcontractors to submit a “data minimization” statement along with their application for operation licenses to the FAA. This statement would include a review of policies adopted to minimize the collection of data unrelated to criminal investigation and to require the destruction of data once it is no longer relevant to said investigation. The data minimization statement would also include audit and oversight procedures to ensure the agency or contractor in question complies with these policies.
The draft bill would also require law enforcement agencies to obtain a warrant to use drones for generalized surveillance without a particular target.
Legislation of this kind is clearly needed: as over 100 agencies across the country have already applied to the FAA for licenses to operate drones, each day that goes by without explicit privacy protections makes the absence of such guidelines even more glaring. Markey’s bill is clearly a starting point for the type of conversation the country needs around drone technology, privacy and law enforcement surveillance capabilities.
About David Matson