Drone Privacy Lawsuit Seeks Tighter FAA Restrictions

Just weeks after releasing preliminary rules for drone regulation, the FAA is facing a lawsuit. The Electronic Privacy Information Center’s lawsuit asks the Washington, DC federal appeals court to declare the regulations unlawful due to the lack of privacy protections, and alleges that the proposal is not comprehensive enough to allow for the safe use of drones in the nation’s airspace.

In its filing, EPIC writes that drones can be “equipped with highly sophisticated surveillance technology that threatens personal privacy,” and given drones’ ability to gather information, could “[pose] a public safety problem for millions of individuals.”

While EPIC says the FAA didn’t go far enough in their proposed regulations, large companies including Amazon claim that the rules go too far, since they will hamper delivery services and other advanced consumer applications due to the FAA’s position that drones cannot travel out of eyesight from the controller.