Overview
Law360 quoted Dane Jaques in a June 21 article titled "States to Steer Drone Privacy After DC Circ. FAA Ruling." The article discusses how the DC Circuit’s dismissal of the Electronic Privacy Information Center's bid to force the Federal Aviation Administration to address privacy concerns in its commercial small-drone rule signals that state and local governments will assume most of the responsibility for tackling privacy protections for drone use.
Jaques explains that privacy and aerial surveillance issues typically addressed at the state level encompass criminal and tortious trespass laws, stalking and peeping Tom laws, limitations on publishing private facts, and wiretap laws that preclude the recording of images or conversations without both parties’ consent.
"But this raises concerns regarding the application of multiple, varied state, local and tribal privacy laws to a UAS operator operating in multiple states," he says. "It also raises the question of how a 'reasonable expectation of privacy' should be defined in this era of rapid technological advancement. We live in a connected world where people are surreptitiously or openly filmed in public places without consent, and that information is sometimes redistributed."
The full article can be read at Law360 (subscription required).