Category: Global Drone Regulations

The first city department in San Francisco adopted a policy on Tuesday to begin deploying drones. In May, The City said five departments could start using drones if they adopted their own drone-use policies and adhered to certain rules to address privacy concerns. The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission unanimously approved its policy to allow the use of drones, also called unmanned aerial vehicles, for three purposes: construction management, environmental monitoring and documentation, and inspection of SFPUC properties and assets. Mary Ellen Carroll, SFPUC’s emergency planning and security director, identified…

Transport Canada has released a series of proposed measures that aim to reduce the security and administrative issues caused by the use of unmanned air vehicles (UAVs or drones). The various restrictions cover different categories of drone models based on weight, as well as an overall set of measures for all drone pilots. Among the general proposed drone regulations is a clause that all pilots operating a drone weighing over 250g must have an obligatory liability insurance of $100,000. Regulations among the “very small” category of drone models — those…

Casual drone fliers will have an extra $5 to spend after the Federal Aviation Administration announced it would refund the fee recreational drone pilots paid with the required registration of their aircraft. This comes after a federal appeals court ruled in May that these pilots no longer have to register with the FAA. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit struck down the FAA rule that required recreational drone users to register their aircraft. In response, the FAA updated the drone registration page on its website,…

MUMBAI: Only defence forces, law-enforcement agencies and a few select government companies are allowed to use drones, but that is not stopping civilian ‘droners’ from hitting the skies. Over the past two years, Indians have spent close to Rs 40 crore buying civil drones, as per estimates of the Consortium of Unmanned Vehicle Systems India (CUVSI). Civil drones, which also include toy drones, bear price tags in the range of Rs 2,000 and Rs 50,000; a rough calculation hints at the presence of 40,000 drones in Indian skies. “Commercial sales…

Ever since camera drones first became available to the average consumer, authorities across the world have had growing concerns about them. No-fly zones are being widely established, and regulations are becoming stricter to restrict when, where, and how the unmanned aircraft can fly. Now the FAA is looking into developing a system to identify drones from afar. The recent news of a man arrested for grounding a number of firefighting aircraft in Arizona with a drone is only the latest in a spate of incidents. Earlier this year, a company…