New Florida drone law

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So Florida just passed a lame drone law, but it's killing my mojo for buying a new drone:

Florida Gov. Rick Scott signed a bill that says drones cannot be used to record video or take pictures of people or their property, but there are not any criminal penalties attached to the law.

That's it. They have to sue you and prove damages. So I don't get it. What's the point of a law with no teeth?

I have no intention of being in my neighbor's yard, but I may shoot the neighborhood from 50-150 feet up. So I can't get anything in the images that can be identified? Or no random people at the beach?

Someone might say to just not worry about it, but it does open the door to lawsuits, and what about the future of it? I don't want to get a drone and find out that the same law, but modified, now allows your arrest because a neighbor's house was shown.

This is so frustrating....
 
So Florida just passed a lame drone law, but it's killing my mojo for buying a new drone:

Florida Gov. Rick Scott signed a bill that says drones cannot be used to record video or take pictures of people or their property, but there are not any criminal penalties attached to the law.

That's it. They have to sue you and prove damages. So I don't get it. What's the point of a law with no teeth?

I have no intention of being in my neighbor's yard, but I may shoot the neighborhood from 50-150 feet up. So I can't get anything in the images that can be identified? Or no random people at the beach?

Someone might say to just not worry about it, but it does open the door to lawsuits, and what about the future of it? I don't want to get a drone and find out that the same law, but modified, now allows your arrest because a neighbor's house was shown.

This is so frustrating....


I don't get the drone privacy laws at all !! I can stand on my roof and look over my neighbors 6 foot fence, I can also go up in a fixed wing Cessna 172 and take great aerial photography without any restrictions or limitations .... I think trying to restrict the use for aerial photography is ridiculous and not practical. ...
Also, I assume the law would mean "without their consent!!??"
 
So peeps in the frame from 150 ft away...now track down ALL of them for authorization to obtain concent?
 
Got a link?
 
So Florida just passed a lame drone law, but it's killing my mojo for buying a new drone:

Florida Gov. Rick Scott signed a bill that says drones cannot be used to record video or take pictures of people or their property, but there are not any criminal penalties attached to the law.

That's it. They have to sue you and prove damages. So I don't get it. What's the point of a law with no teeth?

I have no intention of being in my neighbor's yard, but I may shoot the neighborhood from 50-150 feet up. So I can't get anything in the images that can be identified? Or no random people at the beach?

Someone might say to just not worry about it, but it does open the door to lawsuits, and what about the future of it? I don't want to get a drone and find out that the same law, but modified, now allows your arrest because a neighbor's house was shown.

This is so frustrating....

It is a great law because it is so lame.

You obviously missed the important part. It specifically says that drones cannot be used to record video or take pictures of people or their property with the "intent to commit surveillance".

The point of the law is to give people who realy are violated rights and at the same time give rights to 99% of the operators who have no "intent to commit surveillance".

It's basically an anti-douche-bag law. It is way better to have this law than the criminal statues other states have made.
 
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Stupid law. So that means that it is fine to hover in someone's garden and feed back FPV.... as long as you are not recording it. FFS.:rolleyes:
 
The primary purpose of it was to say that the POLICE can't use them for surveillance, not just you and I.

So if you intend to commit surveillance, I hope someone does sue you.

I suggest you calm down and quit the hostility.
 
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You are criticizing a law that you haven't read.
It might be wise to do some research before
you comment, don't you think?
Yeah I agree, I am only going on what was originally posted in this thread.

Edit: OK I have read some more. And point has not moved much. I was asking if you already have privacy laws. If not then fine. If you do why do you need more. This law is not limited to state bodies, it affects everyone in that region.
 
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Yeah I agree, I am only going on what was originally posted in this thread.

Edit: OK I have read some more. And point has not moved much. I was asking if you already have privacy laws. If not then fine. If you do why do you need more. This law is not limited to state bodies, it affects everyone in that region.
I believe, based on my limited research (and it is quite limited) that this law was passed to prevent the police from using drones for surveillance.
A few years ago the city of Seattle ordered two drones for police work. It was kept quite secret and only a public record search revealed this info - stumbled on by accident.
The citizens of Seattle were very upset, put a stop to the order and the State House voted on new laws to prohibit aerial surveillance. These are in addition to the already existing privacy laws we have on our books.
The result is now not only am I protected from my neighbor spying on my with his eye in the sky, I am also protected from Big Brother spying on me. I like that.
 
I believe, based on my limited research (and it is quite limited) that this law was passed to prevent the police from using drones for surveillance.
A few years ago the city of Seattle ordered two drones for police work. It was kept quite secret and only a public record search revealed this info - stumbled on by accident.
The citizens of Seattle were very upset, put a stop to the order and the State House voted on new laws to prohibit aerial surveillance. These are in addition to the already existing privacy laws we have on our books.
The result is now not only am I protected from my neighbor spying on my with his eye in the sky, I am also protected from Big Brother spying on me. I like that.

Yes that is very important, especially post-snowden, and I had missed the police reference from the original link to be honest. My somewhat moot point was to do with how this affects ordinary people, and they are included in the bill as I interpret it, and indeed, they were there from the very first version of the bill which was filed.

I was assuming you already had privacy laws (but I dont know whether you do or not) but my point was that if you did, bringing in extra privacy laws on top for individuals is rarely a clean legal solution. We had a lot of that micro law making under a previous government my country and it is just wrong when laws already exist which do the job quite well.

In addition I made a point that the law in question only appears to outlaw "recording" images. So it does not for example, actually outlaw remote viewing (say via FPV) without recording, which IMHO is a mistake in this context. However on reading the detail I found it interesting that the definition of "surveillance" in the bill is to do with observation, not necessarily recording. That is ambiguous. By contrast, in the UK a UAV is not conducting surveillance if it is only doing FPV and not recording. I'm not sure if that is right or not.
 
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My impression is there were 2 purposes: limit the police & limit you (*with vagueness).
While I only read news postings I have not read the 6 page law, but it still concerns me where it will go and "You obviously missed the important part. It specifically says that drones cannot be used to record video or take pictures of people or their property with the "intent to commit surveillance"... as soon as I've got an active camera aimed on you that would be "intent".

An act relating to surveillance by a drone; amending s. 934.50, F.S.; defining terms; prohibiting a person, a state agency, or a political subdivision from using a drone to capture an image of privately owned real property or of the owner, tenant, occupant, invitee, or licensee of such property with the intent to conduct surveillance without his or her written consent if a reasonable expectation of privacy exists; specifying when a reasonable expectation of privacy may be presumed... so I say the airspace above my six foot fence should also remain private. Now what?
 
So it's fine for the NSA etc to record all your phone calls and internet traffic, for cities to have fixed surveillance cameras all over the place ... but for police to have an eye in the sky is unthinkable?
 
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What about Google Earth? Surely they are photographing Florida properties from a type of drone?
Perhaps it could be argued that they are not carrying out surveillance but are mapping instead.
 
What about Google Earth? Surely they are photographing Florida properties from a type of drone?.
Google Earth don't use drones and they do any photographing from the air.
They simply collate and use existing aerial photography and satellite imagery from many different sources.
All kinds of aerial photography is being done all the time for varying purposes.

The key concept in this law is one of surveillance which is to observe a subject over time.
There's no hint of the intention of surveillance in the aerial photos that Google Earth use.
Because to the wideangle lenses and killer bee swarm noise effect, it would be very difficult to use a Phantom to carry out surveillance .
 
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