Blog

Issue of drones used for journalism purposes

 
There's been a great amount of discussion about the role of drones in newsgathering (and elsewhere) lately. Although drones are useful for newsgathering, federal, state and local government entities have all expressed concern about the privacy and safety implications that arise when drones fly near other aircraft, above highly populated areas or in locations where individuals might otherwise have a reasonable expectation of privacy. 
 
There's been a great amount of discussion about the role of drones in newsgathering (and elsewhere) lately. Although drones are useful for newsgathering, federal, state and local government entities have all expressed concern about the privacy and safety implications that arise when drones fly near other aircraft, above highly populated areas or in locations where individuals might otherwise have a reasonable expectation of privacy. 

At the federal level, the Federal Aviation Administration is currently trying to balance the utility of drones with the safety risks they pose. Read the blog post that ASNE Legal Counsel Kevin Goldberg wrote in his firm's blog about the FAA's active enforcement of unlicensed operations (and whether the FAA might be exceeding the bounds of the First Amendment), as well as a set of proposed rules that would govern the size, speed, flight path and other matters relating to public safety.
 
More recently, the FAA has clarified how drone footage might be obtained and used for news purposes. The short answer is a media organization might not use drones itself for newsgathering unless the organization holds an FAA authorization to do so, but it can use drone-collected images obtained from a "hobbyist" operator unless that hobbyist operator is himself or herself a commercial operator. At the same time, the National Telecommunications and Information Association has begun looking at the privacy side and setting up several stakeholder meetings over the next few months.  
 
That's just the federal level. Several states are legislating in this area, as well. One of the most high-profile and most recent is California, where SB 142 was recently passed by both houses of the legislature and sent to Gov. Jerry Brown for signature. SB 142 makes flying a drone less than 350 feet above private property an act of trespass and would allow the operator to be fined in the amount of the "value of the use of the property for the time of the wrongful occupation, the reasonable cost of repair or restoration of the property and the costs of recovering the property." It creates a "strict liability" crime, a big change from the bill as originally introduced, which focused on whether the operator was actually invading someone's reasonable expectation of privacy. Now the bill simply says that you could be liable if you fly over private property at a height of less than 350 feet. ASNE joined more than 30 other media organizations and companies on a letter that asks Brown to veto the bill to allow more time to consider the legal and policy implications of this bill.
 
For more information on this issue and other timely topics and fears for the future in the areas of photography, copyright and access, among others, join Goldberg for his session from 1:45 to 2:45 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 18, at the ASNE-APME conference at Stanford University. 

Archive

Contributors