Very bad wording from the Tort Law Relating to Drones Act Drafting Committee if this made its way to the final draft then there will be no cameras in the sky at all. I advise everyone to keep an eye on this committee as this is not the first mistake they have put to paper and their work will inform OUR laws in the future.
SECTION 8. INVASION OF PRIVACY BY UNMANNED AIRCRAFT.
(a) An unmanned aircraft can be an instrumentality by which an invasion of privacy can be committed under the law of this state.
(b)(1) Except as provided in paragraphs (3) of this subsection, a person is liable for constructive invasion of privacy by an unmanned aircraft if:
(A) the person intentionally operates an unmanned aircraft that captures any type of audiovisual image, recording, or other impressionof an individual on that individual’s property; *Yes, thank you.
(B) the person operates the unmanned aircraft in a manner that a reasonable person would believe that the operator had the intent to capture audiovisual image, recording, or other impression without consent[, such as through hovering or repeated flights]; and
(C) the capture violates of the individual’s reasonable expectation of privacy on the individual’s property.
(2) For purposes of this subsection, an individual is presumed to have a reasonable expectation of privacy on the individual’s property if the individual is not observable by persons located at ground level in a place where they have a legal right to be, regardless of whether he or she is observable from the air with the use of an unmanned aircraft.
(3) A person shall not be liable under this paragraph if the capture is:
(A) Otherwise protected by the First Amendment or conforms to the requirements of the Fourth Amendment, warrant, or other order issued by a court; or
(B) Necessary for the safe operation or navigation of the unmanned aircraft.
You can follow their work here: follow committee
This is part of updates made to existing law and new bills passed by the California state legislature, or drafts of them based on what I have read. Below are links to the relevant parts of the laws/bill as passed by the state of California:
http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/15-16/bill/sen/sb_0801-0850/sb_807_bill_20160929_chaptered.pdf
http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/15-16/bill/asm/ab_1651-1700/ab_1680_bill_20160929_chaptered.pdf
Bill Text - AB-856 Invasion of privacy.
SB-807: Essentially protects emergency responders from liability for damages to a UAV. It’s pretty broad in that it includes volunteer responders and most local authorities and/or entities. All in all though, it likely makes sense so as to avoid a rash of lawsuits related to drone users suing local police or fire departments for damaging their drones. The open issue I see would be a local authority purposely destroying or seizing UAV equipment in the name of “public safety”, and using this law as a means of avoiding liability for the value of the seized or damaged equipment.
AB-1680: This bill expands current law and makes it a misdemeanor for anyone to operate a UAV near or in any manner that interferes with any aspect of the response to an emergency.
“Existing law provides that every person who goes to the scene of an emergency or stops at the scene of an emergency, for the purpose of viewing the scene or the activities of police officers, firefighters, emergency medical, or other emergency personnel, or military personnel coping with the emergency in the course of their duties during the time it is necessary for emergency vehicles or personnel to be at the scene of the emergency or to be moving to or from the scene of the emergency for the purpose of protecting lives or property, unless it is part of the duties of that person’s employment to view that scene or those activities, and thereby impedes police officers, firefighters, emergency medical, or other emergency personnel or military personnel, in the performance of their duties in coping with the emergency, is guilty of a misdemeanor.” This is very broad, and basically means you could be arrested or charged with a crime for just being around an “emergency”.
The bill expands this to include:
“This bill would include, for purposes of these provisions, the operation or use of an unmanned aerial vehicle, remote piloted aircraft, or drone, regardless of the operator’s location, in the definition of a person. By expanding the scope of a crime, this bill would create a state-mandated local program.” Basically, if you fly a UAV near anything defined as an emergency, you could be charged with a crime. How this will work out with News entities and other related services will be interesting to see. Certainly, a News helicopter flying near an emergency is not considered a crime today. However, under this law a UAV doing the same is.
AB-856: This bill updates current privacy law. Here under section “1708.8. (a) A person is liable for physical invasion of privacy when the person knowingly enters onto the land or into the airspace above the land of another person without permission or otherwise commits a trespass in order to capture any type of visual image, sound recording, or other physical impression of the plaintiff engaging in a private, personal, or familial activity and the invasion occurs in a manner that is offensive to a reasonable person.”
Yes, the definition of privacy is very broad. I believe the root purpose of the changes was to avoid the press (i.e. paparazzi) or others using drones to get pics of the private lives of celebrities, access to these people’s homes and back yards, etc.
Like any law however, these section could easily be misconstrued and applied to cases that were unintended. For example, a drone flying over someone’s yard, could be interpreted as an invasion of privacy under the definition of this law. Interestingly, given a strict interpretation of the law as written, so could a helicopter or airplane flying over someone’s backyard. So, it will be interesting to see how many lawsuits spring up against news helicopters for invasion of privacy in California.
In reality, the gist of these laws is that if you live in this state, you probably don’t want to be flying a drone near other people or over anyone’s property.
