How Property Rights, Privacy and Air Mobility Can Boost The Economy

Property Owners Air Rights and Economic Growth

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A drone is hovering persistently outside a high-rise condominium window in Toronto and it’s not the first time; it marks the third encounter with the uninvited aerial visitor.

Drones and Privacy

"It’s really unnerving and it really does sort of shatter any sense of privacy," Graston, a resident said. Her condo is twenty stories above ground level and she managed to capture a photo of the drone with its four propellers.

Often real estate agents use drones for promotional shots, other drone companies are trying to operate by delivering food and other items so the possibility of a drone, unannounced is real. The residents of the building in Toronto like many others have expressed their concerns;

“Even if it’s somebody using a drone for non-nefarious purposes, they should still be informing us, so people can plan accordingly.”

What is being expressed is what has been expressed time and again. It is up to the air rights holder to grant permission to the drone company to be in their airspace. It is not open skies for drone companies to just fly in and out of people’s airspace.

A positive for those who like me want drones in our skies and flying cars, is that when permission is requested it will generally be granted under certain circumstances. If it’a not granted that needs to be respected and drones business models adapted. The default is drones need permission to be in air rights holders’ airspace.

In a recent YouGov poll over 75% of US property owners want a say on who is in their airspace and 50% want to be paid for drone flights - they are pro-drone! Drones are a net positive for society so when these companies try to circumvent individual property rights it pushes their mission back even further and puts the public offside. Using existing air rights drones can scale and not be cast in the light of bad actors, but they need permission.

(unsplash)

Regulators One Track Mind

The former Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario, Ann Cavoukian, weighed in on the matter, calling for more stringent measures for permission of airspace for drones. She emphasized the importance of safeguarding personal privacy and controlling access to airspace.

"That’s your personal privacy and you should be able to control that.”

Daniel Konikoff, interim advocacy director for the Privacy, Technology, and Surveillance Program at the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, highlighted the limitations of current regulations, characterising some of them as more guidelines than stringent rules. He expressed the need for more robust privacy legislation to address the growing drone-related privacy concerns.

This is clearly not the answer. We have more than enough regulations in place. In fact, we should start removing some of the regulatory debt that has built up over time, in general.

Regulators looking to add more regulation to their already bloated book won’t help air mobility, privacy or the economy. The air rights are owned by the property owner and the permission to be in that airspace can be granted. The issue is scale. The property owners cannot grant it at scale nor can the drone companies request it at scale. SkyTrades is solving this problem.

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Guns, Property and Technology

There is a litany of drone-related issues due to airspace uncertainty. The federal government will not take legally acquired property and give this private low-altitude airspace to drone companies. This was confirmed after years of lobbying from drone companies and vested interests to try and access the low-altitude airspace for free, some of these companies now trespass and violate privacy laws as the government would not step in to beatify their existing models.

In 2015, an incident with all the ingredients of a low-budget movie happened. It involved guns, property rights, and technology at William Meredith’s Kentucky residence.

Meredith’s daughter alerted him to a drone flying over the neighbourhood as he and his family were grilling in his backyard. He got his shotgun from his home, and when the drone crossed his property line, he shot it out of the sky.

The drone’s owner, a neighbour, called the police upon discovering his destroyed drone, and the police arrested Meredith and charged him under local law for firing a gun in a populated area.

At the trial in state court, the judge dismissed the charges stating that Meredith was justified in shooting the drone because of the invasion of privacy.

When asked why he shot the drone, Meredith said that he had called the police when a drone had flown overhead previously, and the police told him they thought they could do nothing about it.

What is interesting about technological developments, a gun is no longer required, and a simple low-cost jamming device that can be placed around communities to stop drones from trespassing or violating privacy laws is now being used. Anti-drone technology is a very large category within the drone space and one that is increasing for many use cases including security and defence.

Many homeowners are keen on drones and positive about how they can help improve their lives and are happy to grant drone companies permission through SkyTrades.

(dronelife)

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Property Owners Whip Hand

In the United States, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has acknowledged local authorities’ police power in land use, zoning, privacy, trespass, and law enforcement operations. Many states have sovereignty over low-altitude airspace, and more than 30 states have expressly vested air rights in the property owner.

Criminal trespass is defined in many states as entering or remaining in or on the property of another without their consent.

Privacy law concerning drones generally fall into two categories:  

1. Laws that require law enforcement to obtain a warrant prior to using a drone to perform a search of or surveillance on a suspect, and

2. Laws that prohibit using drones to do various activities that would invade someone else's privacy.  

These laws vary considerably by state with regard to exactly what types of activities are prohibited, including flying over private property (trespassing), filming over private property, photographing in a place where a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy, height restrictions for flying over private property, consent restrictions, restrictions on publishing images taken without consent, and other rules that specifically make it an offence to use a drone for harassment or voyeurism.

Since 2013, the majority of states have passed legislation that falls within the broad category of privacy. This includes legislation related to warrant requirements for Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAVs) use by law enforcement agencies and protection from privacy violations committed by non-government operators, including peeping toms.

The property owners who control the air rights hold the key to scaling commercial drones in our skies. The sovereignty of the property owner is being taken and we are left with a situation of violations by drone companies who are facing expensive civil suits and criminal charges and very unsatisfied property owners. This is not the way to grow the economy.

(pointtwodesign)

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Property Ownership DNA

We should be grateful for the fact that common law and strong property rights are in the DNA of the United States. In other jurisdictions, the government or an agency of the state would come in, claim the rights that are the individuals and use them how and when they wish and without compensation to the individual owner.

Nevertheless, it can’t be assumed that some don’t want to change this. That is why it is important we are mindful and keep our eyes wide open to any potential erosion of individual rights that comes in the guise of the greater good.

“Show me the incentive, I'll show you the outcome.” - Charlie Munger

For drones to scale they need permissioned air space. For air rights holders to grant permission to their air space the incentive needs to be greater than a slightly quicker delivery service for their communities. It is undoubtedly good to grow wheat on your land, as you could sell it and benefit, however, would you allow your neighbour to do this for free in your front yard without compensation?

The next time you see a drone flying overhead, it’s worth thinking about who is benefiting from the use of the airspace it's travelling through. Are you willing to give up your hard-fought and valuable rights with no say in how your air space is used?

Thank you for reading. Please share with your networks and if you want to learn more about how you can get involved in developing air rights to grow GDP, contact me at jonathan@skytrades.io or SkyTrades.io