Here’s Why Finding Out Who Flew Drone Over Bernard Grech’s Home Is Near Impossible
It seems that Malta’s lax enforcement of laws in place to control drone use only makes a stalker’s goal easier to reach and complete.
Alarms were raised after a drone recently flew down to Opposition Leader Bernard Grech’s private family home, bringing about a serious breach of privacy.
A police investigation has been opened. However, Lovin Malta looked into how much of a challenge it actually is to track down a drone and find out who the pilot is.
To start with the bad news first, unless you physically manage to catch a drone and get its serial number right then and there, it’s practically near impossible to find out who was flying it under local laws.
According to Maltese regulations, a drone user needs to manually register their permissions to flight, either before or after the flight takes place.
Quoting directly from Transport Malta’s information page on drone use in Malta, “flight requests should be submitted online at tmcad.idronect.com, specifying the flight parameters including date, time, location, and type of drone used”.
This system also allows a drone user to see the weather forecast and flight zones that are restricted. Apart from that, “flights that are low risk and comply with certain pre-defined parameters are authorised automatically, so the Authorisation Form can be downloaded or printed immediately”.
But how can this be enforced if one has to register their drone flight manually – thus meaning that a drone operator can easily decide not to register their flight.
So where can you fly your drone?
According to EASA regulations in place for drones, one needs to keep their drone 150m away from built-up areas or private properties, and 30m away from people. Apart from that, a drone operator should always make sure to respect others’ privacy, and flying into one’s private property is supposedly illegal.
And how can you bring down a drone that’s violating your privacy if you haven’t managed to catch it?
The easiest and one of the only ways to successfully track a drone is if you have access to the drone’s serial number. The serial number can easily point towards the owner of the drone in question, as the device has to be registered and licensed.
Bringing down a drone outside of highly restricted areas is no easy task and would cause a logistical nightmare for authorities that will disrupt many people’s communications.
Given that it can be very hard to prove that one was flying a drone illegally over your property when filing a police report, it seems some changes need to be made.
Local law has definitely not made it easy to find out who is operating a drone, so perhaps an automatic tracing system is essential to guarantee privacy and safety.
Do you think Malta needs to clamp down on drone laws?
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