[Peetwo]

New UAV regulations, a lawyers banquet -

Reference - 'Closing the safety loop' thread:

CAsA & ATsB out of the loop on RPA/UAV safety -

Remember this??

Drones and the like.

This topic is getting some traction, particularly now with ‘sales’ expected to increase 10 fold.  It got some attention at the BRB last evening.  It’s not a ‘hot’ topic, not yet at least, but the different ‘styles’ of risk management were discussed. The FAA appear to be taking a strong line, registration and airworthiness checks, CASA a more laid back approach where responsibility is abrogated through the familiar hand washing process. One of the almost unanimously agreed points was that no matter what the official approach taken, the ‘rogue’ element and those who wilfully intend to misuse the UAV will do so, regardless.

The conversation then turned to ‘numbers of’ – in the long term.  Just how many of the wretched things can we expect.  Consensus seemed to be that at the moment, it’s a ‘fad’ which will hit a peak and diminish as interest wains and wrecks increase.  Sensible money seems to be bet across a three horse race; the sane, safe, legal productive use of an excellent tool by responsible adults: the dedicated aero-modeller types who have never yet created a problem to anyone; and, the dedicated Darwin award crowd who also like lasers and spotlights.  The also rans are those who will purchase not a tool or a thing of interest but a trendy ‘product’ to amuse ‘junior’ for a while until it is discarded and finds it’s way into the nearest skip, broken and forgotten as easily as it was purchased.

One thing was agreed, UAV’s are here to stay in one form or another; it only remains to be seen how ‘government’ will respond – after the fact with retrospective knee-jerk; or, proactively looking carefully at the risks.

We shall see – for mine, the shotgun is always handy.

Toot toot.

Hmm...I'm a little bit dubious of this...

"...Australia can be confident that the biggest aerial innovation since the jet engine is being introduced safely and deliberately. Nobody knows this better than CASA — and when CASA promotes the benefits of more commercial micro drones in Australia, we should all listen..."

From his track record so far Skidmore has shown no inclination to giving a flying fig (or UAV) for minority industry groups and/or their commercial concerns, it is simply not part of his vocabulary -    

It may be a case of.."damned if you do, damned if you don't"; however going off the track record of the Department & it's aviation safety agencies, I am somewhat suspect that Murky & his minions are obfuscating their responsibilities in a further attempt to limit the government's public liability on such issues as the rapidly growing plethora of small (<2kg) UAVs. That is they are once again divorcing themselves from the safety loop.

Today's Oz article by Binger does nothing to dispel my suspicions... :

Drone deregulation: fatalities will be a case of ‘when, not if’

Still really don't have much to add to my cynical suspicions above, nor do I have an opinion either way on the new regs due to be released this time next week. However I did find the following article from the 'Lawyers Weekly' interesting in that it would seem, that like sharks on a trail of blood, the legal fraternity can sense much happy litigation and legal embuggerances to come once the amended CASR Part 101 is bedded down...

Australia leads the way in drone regulation
21 September 2016 Lara Bullock

New drone regulations, to be introduced by the Civil Aviation Safety Authority next week, will impact lawyers in a wide array of practice areas, including insurance, intellectual property and privacy.

The regulator for the use of aircraft in Australia, the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA), has developed new drone regulations, which will take effect on 29 September.

On a recent episode of The Lawyers Weekly Show podcast, Piper Alderman partner James Lawrence gave background on drone regulation in Australia and detailed the upcoming changes.

“Australia was the first country to regulate, formally, the use of drones for civilian use and commercial use. In fact, CASA first set out their set of rules in 2002, well before the USFFA set out their set of rules,” Mr Lawrence said.

“At the moment we’re still operating under the old, much more restrictive regime, but that will change as of 29 September this year. Again, CASA [is] taking the lead on really cutting a lot of the red tape around the use of drones in a commercial context, which means that really it's quite an exciting time for the use of drones.”

CASA’s new regulations will amend Part 101 of the Civil Aviation Safety Regulations (CASR), which is the primary regulatory instrument affecting drones in Australia.

A recent article published by Corrs Chambers Westgarth outlined the three key changes: drones will be categorised differently based on gross weight, there will be new standing operating conditions, and there will be changes to drone licensing and certification requirements.

Legal sectors impacted

Mr Lawrence said that drone usage touches a surprisingly large number of sectors, and therefore legal practice areas.

“What we’re seeing is a lot more uptake in the real estate, insurance, imaging and agribusiness sectors,” he said.

“In the insurance space we’re seeing underwriters and insurers able to use drones to, for example, survey damaged buildings after large storms. Managing liability and indemnities in the contractual arrangements between the drone service provider and the insurer is a real balancing act.”

He also emphasised that drone regulations have an impact on intellectual property and copyright practices.

“A lot of these drones will generally take optical surveillance or imaging devices as part of the payload, so there’s a lot of imaging being taken. So a real question arises in the context of who owns copyright, for example, in images that are being taken, and how is that managed in the context of a service agreement?” he said.

“In the copyright context, the first owner of the copyright is the person who takes the photograph. In those circumstances, ownership of copyright will be a real issue in the context of someone who engages a drone operator. If you’re engaging that operator, you may want, for example, the copyright and any copyright work produced by use of the drone.”

Another important legal concern, according to Mr Lawrence, is privacy.

“There is a concern around privacy and intrusion. Of course, in Australia we do not have a tort of intrusion of privacy. We have the Commonwealth Privacy Act, but that generally regulates the collection and use of personal information,” he explained.

“There is a gap, in some people’s minds, around protection of privacy. In fact, the Australian Law Reform Commission recently recommended that Australia embrace a Commonwealth, legislative right of privacy. As yet, that has not been acted on.”

 
Ahh..it's a lawyers world isn't it? - happy days...



MTF...P2