What's the Right Way to Regulate Commercial Drones?

Melissa S. Hersh, Michael Hopmeier

Security, Americas

Before the Black Friday shopping, let’s consider how to keep every side satisfied.

As the barrage of television, newspaper, and online advertisements alert us to Black Friday shopping extravaganzas, small unmanned aerial systems (sUAS) remain prominent gifts for this year’s holiday wish lists. The ever-lowering costs of these commercial, hobbyist aircraft—and their components—combined with the FAA’s decision to relax restrictions on when, where and what can be flown, and by whom, has the law enforcement community decidedly less excited. Today, law-enforcement operators have two legal options for enforcing laws that address either negligent or deliberately antagonistic drones in urban and rural domestic environments: (1) see something, say something, and (2) forensically identify the drone owner-operator after it has taken off, landed, or caused harm or disruption.

Glaringly absent in law enforcement’s toolbox is the ability to actually counter drones. Interdicting or preventing a sUAS after take-off and before disruption or deliberate damage occurs is bit of a blurry mess.

Law enforcement’s ability to address the threat of negligent or deliberate misuse of drones is very limited. First, legal authorities are unclear, and policies almost nonexistent. Under current law, there is no legal difference between a manned or unmanned aircraft, so interfering with a drone carries the same legal penalties as interfering with a manned aircraft (i.e., go to jail for hijacking). While modifying existing case law or introducing new laws take time, these issues are being addressed by a number of working groups. The speed of technological evolution makes developing a relevant legal framework challenging.

A larger problem, however, is the lack of technology that can reliably address these challenges. While there is no shortage of claims (many unsubstantiated) and marketing for counter-drone systems, they almost exclusively rely on drone manufacturers and owners to follow the community’s rules and traditions. In this honor-based system, counter-drone manufacturers and owners assume the drones have unencrypted data links, the software is reliable or has not been hacked, and that manufacturers (companies or DIYers) actually have built in fail-safes. This is a two-part assumption: first, that COTS drones will act as they say they do on the box, and second, that COTS drones will not be modified after purchase.