Drone Registration

Just to be clear, the topic of this post is consumer drones, such as quadcopters, not military drones.

As of December 2015, all citizens of the United States will be required to register their drones to the Department of Transportation. It is not yet been made clear by the government what types of drones people will have to register, but most people are assuming that all drones will need to be registered. People are already used to some drone regulations and registration laws, such as the state/town imposed regulations, but there haven’t been any laws about drones coming from the federal government before now.

There are many arguments that can be made that are for drone registration laws, but there are also many arguments that are against these laws. Perhaps the most common argument in favor of drone registration is based on the fact that drones are constantly landing in places that they shouldn’t be. For example, earlier this year, a drone crashed over the White House lawn. That is just one of the places that drones should not be allowed to fly in/over as it could be considered a threat to the nation’s security. Another place that drones have been showing up is in airports. This is even more dangerous, since if a drone flies into a turbine of one of the jets, it could cause a whole list of potential problems. Along with the possibility of a drone flying into a plane while it is on the ground, an even worse possibility is that one could fly into an airplane while it is in the air. This would cause the plane to crash, just like if some geese flew into an engine of a flying plane.

All of those arguments revolve around the fact that if all drones were registered, the government would be able to identify who was flying what drone, if and when it caused some sort of accident.

Along with the arguments that are pro-drone registration laws, there are quite a few that are against them. The main one is based off of the fact that criminals don’t follow the laws. Just because a law “requires” you do do something, if someone has criminal intentions related to the subject of that law, they aren’t going to follow that law. The only people who will register their drones would be normal, law-abiding citizens, not criminals who want to do something without getting caught. Another argument against drone registration laws is that it will just add another step and cost for people looking to buy a drone. Say someone wanted to buy a drone just to mess around with and have fun, they wouldn’t want to go to the trouble of registering their drone to the government. It really only makes sense if you are planning on using your drone for commercial use.

Here are some good videos on this topic, one coming from The Verge.