A quad copter drone crasbed into/down/onto my backyard.

[IBrakeforPastry]

Call the police and the FAA. I work for the FAA and these things make my blood boil. I'm so tired of the "I bought it and I can do whatever I want with it" mentality.

[shootingstar]

Some commentary in canada, but more importantly issues and accidents...this area of law is changing: http://www.slaw.ca/2014/11/03/robot-law-ii-drones/ Snooping drone around a woman's apartment on Vancouver Island, etc.

Vancouver International Airport has had several incidents of drones that prevented incoming planes from landing...this was news nationally within the last few months. I believe there was an incident in North America where someone was killed by a drone that crashed on them.

People talk about the safety of smaller drones (therefore less subject to licensing)....what a pile of crap. We, meaning, mankind, have the means now, every single year to minaturize technological devices to become very powerful for surveillance and photography. If medicine can stick a camera inside your colon or engineering sector can stick a camera into the piping system for repairs....then now we have the technology to wide angle lens and zoom in.

Of course there's a public videoclip of gorgeous mansion homes in Vancouver....it goes on for 25 homes ..and the clip says taken by a drone. Drone was flying pretty close enough. I watched it.

[Helene2013]

That is scary. I think I would have confiscated it (it's in MY yard) and hand it to the police. We truly have no privacy anywhere anymore. And talk about safety as you never know what these "new" devices may carry on board! The world is getting sicker by the minute.

[OakLeaf]

Yep, safety is an issue. They're not as easy to control as someone who's never flown anything might think. And a lot of people who've never flown anything before, got cheap little drones for their birthdays or holidays or whatever. I've got a friend who's been doing RC aviation for some time now, whose new hobby is posting ads from people whose windows have been broken, and counter-ads from people searching for their lost drones.

As far as privacy though ... ever look at Google Maps and zoom in on your house? Even out in the country there's high resolution aerial photography, and up until very recently, all of it came from full sized pilot-operated aircraft. Yes, UAV photography is gradually putting pilots out of business, but it's not like we don't have planes and helicopters flying over our house all the time, 15 miles from the nearest town with population higher than 500.

[shootingstar]

I appreciate your comment Oak, that we've had helicopters and small aircraft flying around etc. But a drone is much smaller.

Sure google maps is the evidence. They have not perfectly blurred out faces of the unintentional capture of people in their street shots. Those might be older photos. Don't know the firm's procedures and if they are used consistently worldwide for protection of personal privacy since non-North American countries seem to have less strict privacy law (ie. photos provided on resumes is not a practice in North America, but it can be in other countries).

Some of the (bigger) municipal government authorities are moving towards some limited contracted use of drones for documenting infrastructure and then geospatially tagging the imagery.

[Aromig]

Yep, safety is an issue. They're not as easy to control as someone who's never flown anything might think. .

This. My son wanted one for Christmas. I bought a not cheap, but not expensive one ($200). He was upset because he wanted the large nice versions (upwards of $1000) that could carry a camera, etc. He crashed it in our front yard on Christmas day. He had to order parts, fixed it, and crashed it again. He's had tons of remote control "stuff" including some helicopters (but not a quad copter), and he found it very difficult.

Luckily the small ones can't go very far (besides not wanting to waste money on something that I knew he very likely would crash until he learned more, I didn't want one that we'd have to register nor did I want one that would be capable of flying very far or very high.