AUVSI participated in the National Telecommunications and Information Agency (NTIA) multi-stakeholder process on UAS Privacy best practices convened from 2015-2016 at the direction of President Obama. The NTIA process resulted in a Voluntary Best Practices document written and supported by many of the stakeholders, including AUVSI, which we present here.
AUVSI supports the use of voluntary best practices to address privacy concerns raised by UAS technology and believes that in many circumstances, voluntary self-governance by this emerging industry can be more practical and effective than the slow and cumbersome process of legislation and regulation. It is important to keep in mind that in some instances, the use of an unmanned aircraft system does not raise privacy concerns that differ from those raised by other technologies such as ground-based cameras. It remains a key principle of AUVSI that unmanned technologies should not be discriminated against, or be held to a higher standard, simply because they are unmanned.
We urge the adoption of these voluntary Best Practices in circumstances where operations raise privacy concerns that are novel or unique to UAS.