Post by angra on Sept 8, 2012 19:33:28 GMT 10
ABC's Foreign Correspondent continues to provide great and interesting stories. Tonight they had a feature on The Rise of the Drones.
As well as the obvious military applications they are thousands of hobbyists, commercial operators and law enforcement agencies flying cheap drones for surveillance etc.
I've often thought it would be fun to spend a few hundred dollars on a toy RC 'copter, mount a webcam on it and take pictures or streaming video of my neighbourhood. This is now cheap and easy to do. Would be great for wildlife shots, progress on new housing developments, general natural history, storm chasing etc.
But what are the implications? Presumably if I take some video of my neighbours having a naughty in their backyard then post it on the internet that's a NO NO. But if I take video of some local thugs committing a crime and give it to the police as evidence which helps convict them, that's a YES YES.
Where does Australian law stand on this?
Damn interesting.
As well as the obvious military applications they are thousands of hobbyists, commercial operators and law enforcement agencies flying cheap drones for surveillance etc.
I've often thought it would be fun to spend a few hundred dollars on a toy RC 'copter, mount a webcam on it and take pictures or streaming video of my neighbourhood. This is now cheap and easy to do. Would be great for wildlife shots, progress on new housing developments, general natural history, storm chasing etc.
But what are the implications? Presumably if I take some video of my neighbours having a naughty in their backyard then post it on the internet that's a NO NO. But if I take video of some local thugs committing a crime and give it to the police as evidence which helps convict them, that's a YES YES.
Where does Australian law stand on this?
Damn interesting.