Civil Aviation Safety Authority’s proposed drones registration scheme highlighted the growing importance of responsible drone journalism.
CASA aimed to implement the scheme by the end of 2019 to address various public concerns on regulatory and privacy aspects of drone usage.
According to CASA, there were 1582 licensed drone operators as of 29 May 2019 and more than 50,000 unlicensed drone users.
The sharp rise of unlicensed drone users in Australia in recent years have made it difficult for CASA to enforce drone regulations.
Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology technical coordinator Mr David Beesley said that CASA’s biggest issue was compliance of drone regulations due to the easy access of drones to consumers and the lack of point of sales material educating them on said regulations.
“They [CASA] are repackaging drone laws in all sorts of cartoony type formats aimed at newbie flyers that are perhaps not even aware there are any regulations around drone use,” Mr Beesley said.
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CASA corporate communications section manager Mr Peter Gibson said that the media has a good awareness of drone safety rules as compared to a few years ago.
“However there was a case last year of someone flying for the ABC at the region of bush fire, they interfered with firefighting activities flying on bushfire grounds which was against our rules…still some issues there but by and large media doing the right thing,” Mr Gibson said.
Monash University Director of Master of Journalism Professor Johan Lidberg said that privacy is a huge public concern given the extreme detail you can capture footage with drones.
“Even though there are regulations around how near you can fly them, if you fly them quite high, if you have a license and a really high end camera you can capture enormous detail,” Professor Lidberg said.
Mr Gibson said that privacy was a complex area given that there were no specific privacy laws covering drones or even privacy laws controlling individuals.
“If you’ve got one individual flying a drone and allegedly deter the privacy of another individual, that is a difficult…there are no precedence yet of courts covering that sort of thing, so it’s an untested area,” Mr Gibson said.
The Senate Standing Committees on Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport 2018 Parliament Report stated that there was a growing public anxiety on the invasion of privacy by drones coming into close range of people, buildings and events.
According to CASA, an average of 15 people were prosecuted and penalised every year for flying drones dangerously, excluding the number of unreported illegal drone operations.
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The University of Melbourne Director for Centre of Advancing Journalism Associate Professor Andrew Dodd advised drone journalists to fly in ways that wouldn’t affect people’s privacy.
“I don’t go anywhere near for example places where people could perceive in a way which is encroaching on their privacy,” Professor Dodd said.
“CASA is insisting that DJI, which is the principle drone manufacturer in Australia now registers all its aircraft so that now it can work out who was flying their drone at that place at that time…and that to me seems like big brother, it’s awfully controlling.”
Mr Gibson said the response to CASA’s general consultation was that most drone users understood the need for the registration and accreditation of drones.
“Inevitably when there are drone accidents, that would lead to call on restrictions on drones which is what we don’t want to do. Because if we want to keep getting innovation and development in this sector we want to keep it as free as possible, but balance that with people safety and aircraft.”
Audio Image 1: Civil Aviation Safety Authority Logo. Image: Civil Aviation Safety Authority
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