Do I let new neighbour know they’ve made the village page?!

[Fedup2910]

I’ve recently moved, where I used to live had new tenants over the weekend.
Walked past there Saturday and noticed they were flying a drone (took off from the garden so I know it belongs to them), it was obviously out again this morning as people are complaining/ want to contact police etc.

I have some bits I took with me by mistake when we moved (appliance manuals) which I need to drop over- whilst I’m there do I mention people are kicking off about the drone flying on the village FB page or keep out of it?

You need to read up on GDPR rules.

I think the basics is that organisations have to abide by GDPR, but individuals do not. The rules governing a surveyor using a drone will be very different to an individual using one.

If I (an individual) video a security guard at an industrial unit gate he has no right to the footage as I am not subject to GDPR, but if he gets his phone out and photographs me then he - as an employee of a company - is subject to GDPR rules and I am entitled to the photos if I ask within 30 days and he (or the organisation, not sure which) have committed an offence if they deleted them or do not supply them.

Others may be able to say much more.

The posters telling you to “keep out of it” are two faced! I’d be furious and hurt if I discovered a friend knew and didn’t bother to tell me. I’d never trust them again!

Is a pretty grey area isn’t it.

where laws/rules haven’t kept up with technology.

It’s not a friend. So this issue on ongoing trust is totally irrelevant. It’s a former tenant of a rental property who took appliance manuals in error, they have zero personal connection to the weirdos / dickheads with the drones.

The drone flyer isn't the OP's friend. She is nothing to do with the drone flyer - apart from needing to give them manuals she accidentally took. So whether the drone flyer trusts OP is irrelevant to anything.

I wouldn't get involved. Anyone with an ounce of common sense can deduce that a drone flying over people's property/garden is going to piss some people off.

Surprised so many posters would have no issues whatsoever with a noisy flying camera flying over their homes and gardens. The cameras are really good on them and anybody could be flying it to download footage of children playing, sunbathers etc. Plus they sound like a loud bee in your ear. No thanks.

I hate drones. Noisy, intrusive, and just fucking rude.

Honestly I think anyone who has a drone for recreational purposes is an antisocial, selfish dickhead at best.

I'd mention it in passing. We have someone in our village who flies their drone up and takes some beautiful aerial photos and posts them. You can't see individuals in gardens etc. They put a post on FB explaining what they were doing and sharing photos. A lot of people now look forward to seeing them. Sometimes you can heard an annoying buzzing noise but it has never seemed particularly close to gardens etc as far as I know. It might be worth mentioning it to them, or asking what they are doing or suggesting letting people know what they are doing or that people might like to see aerial photos if they took them? Or not your circus, not your monkeys- up to you and your thoughts about local area etc

Be careful what you wish for.

Taking that last sentence to its logical conclusion you could end up arrested for filming a couple who are in their front garden, when all you were trying to do is film your kids excitedly walking along the pavement to the park.

The point is that in our country we are (basically) free to film and photograph whatever we want if we are in a public place, including things that are private but are visible from public space. Air-space is effectively public space. Making photographing people in private gardens illegal has the effect of making it almost illegal to take photographs in public if any residential property is somewhere in the distance where your camera is pointing. And if you then also banned filming people on private land (including commercial) then filming on high streets / shopping centres, industrial estates would be illegal. And dash-cams would all be illegal.

The reason we can film people in their gardens is because the alternative is draconian and a massive breach of human rights.

If we don't want the law to be draconian all we can do is allow it, and reserve criminality for those who are using their filming to commit other offences (eg harassment).

And you'd still only be filmed about 1% less, because most of the time you are filmed it is police, councils, governent, highwys agency, private companies.

We already have no cameras in swimming pools and public spaces, which people fully understand the need for. It would be an obvious waste of time for people to report someone taking photos of others outside their house - you are wilfully minimising how horrible it is to have a buzzing camera hovering over your home for hours on a sunny afternoon when you don't know what it is for. In war zones they are used to hunt and kill people, so I think the more laws we put into place to make people who are using them to stalk, spy and the rest the better. There is zero benefit to the public for everyone to have the ability to film people they don't know without their permission in their own homes.

No cameras in public spaces? Typo?

I don't think we have "no cameras in swimming pools". I just googled and found lots of photo taken in swimming pools in the uk. Also some leisure centres have CCTV covering the pool and surrounding area, or do you think that men who get security jobs at swimming pools are all angels who would never use CCTV footage nefariously?

I am not "minimising how horrible it is to have a buzzing camera hovering over your home for hours on a sunny afternoon when you don't know what it is for. " I am saying that comes under harassment. The buzzing drone hovering over your home is a minor inconvenience that comes with not living alone on a desert island. The doing it for hours is what makes it unacceptable, anti-social and illegal.

I’d have a laugh with them about it. I couldn’t care less if I piss off my neighbours by doing things they unreasonably are annoyed with.

Big difference between being filmed walking past someone's house on a public street, (where everyone can see you anyway because you're in a public, open place) and being filmed relaxing in your own garden, which isn't a public space and where you have an expectation of privacy.

It all depends how high up it is. There was a court case back in 1978 that said that a landowners rights extend only up to the height necessary for the ordinary use and enjoyment of their land.

So, you own the airspace that you might reasonably use for buildings, chimneys trees etc or to enjoy privacy in your garden.

But you don't own the airspace that's higher up than that.

There's also a law on this as well, Section 76 of the Civil Aviation Act 1982:

"76(1) No action shall lie in respect of trespass or in respect of nuisance, by reason only of the flight of an aircraft over any property at a height above the ground which, having regard to wind, weather and all the circumstances of the case is reasonable, or the ordinary incidents of such flight, so long as the provisions of any Air Navigation Order and of any orders under section 62 above have been duly complied with"

However, what is "reasonable" depends on context. Obviously, having a drone flying at head height is clearly not reasonable. Having a drone pass over your house 60m (200 ft) up in the air is likely going to be reasonable. But inbetween those two extremes, it depends.

I hate drones and don't think they should be in domestic and residential areas. One went missing on our local Facebook group the owner going mad looking for it. I didn't take much notice till I needed to get something out of my parents garage and there is was on my dad's workbench waiting to be disected I piled it in the car and took it to the tip. They are an absolute menace he'd been flying over the property all summer. Stupid choices win stupid prizes.

It gets complicated. That link appears to be concerned with companies and businesses. They will almost always be a data controller.

However, where the drone operator is an individual, things are different. There is an exception under Article 2 of the UK GDPR which says that the GDPR does not apply to an individual in the course of a purely personal or household activity.

If they are just doing this for their own benefit then it is very likely that the GDPR does not apply to them.

However, if they were to put those videos onto Youtube then that is a very different matter altogether.

Posting videos to Youtube is not a "purely personal or household activity" and doing that will mean that they likely do fall under GDPR and become data controllers.
.

"Is my back garden enough or do I need to be stood in it?"

The GDPR and the Data Protection Act are concerned with the data of individuals, not places. So the data would relate to yourself, not your garden.

"There is an exemption in data protection law to protect freedom of expression and information in journalism, academic activities, art and literature."

From what I can make out drone youtubers will argue that as individuals making money from content they are not subject to GDPR, because their video is an artistic endeavour, or the video is effectively a type of journalism / public interest video. I don't know how strong this argument is, and how much it varies dependent on the precise nature of the video, but drone youtubers seems to entirely ignore without consequence, whilst being very keen on ensuring companies that definitely need to follow GDPR law do so.

It sounds bloody annoying! But not your circus op 🐒🐒🐒

😂😂😂👏👏👏

Same here. I'd shoot the damned things down. Unless you're in the emergency services or armed forces (or some industries, perhaps), what legitimate need have you of an annoying, buzzing, intrusive bit of kit that's going to piss off your neighbours and make them wonder if they're going to be burgled?

If you try to take photographs in a public swimming pool you will be told off. I am not sure on the legalities of it but most parents don't take kindly to adults wafting cameras about their kids or teens in bathing suits and unisex changing rooms are becoming problematic for under door filming.

If a drone is hovering over my house and I can hit it, I strongly suspect it isn't in aviation air space.

Isn't this the law in France though where you can't just take a photo of a property/person without their permission?

There are restrictions on where and when you can fly drones. l would not get involved. If anyone reports them to the police, it's their problem, and it sounds like it may happen soon from what you say in your post.

Clearly having a camera out (let alone taking photos) in ANY changing space is incredibly dodgy and potentially illegal and going to attract a lot of attention.

Lots of people are told off for doing things that are perfectly lawful. I don't take kindly to all sorts of things, that doesn't mean I can stop people doing them.

Lots of people / organisations have rules which they cannot enforce because they are trumped by human rights or law of the land. I do not know the extent to which swimming pool camera bans are enforceable, but I do note that parents often like taking photos of their kids competing in sport.

I think you'll find criminal damage is a criminal offence whether the drone is being flown lawfully or not (caveat, if it is genuinely bothering pregnant sheep and you shoot it to protect the sheep then maybe it would not be criminal damage). Two wrongs do not make a right. Presumably you don't think you have a right to shoot the tyres off a car that's speeding do you? Also with a drone you have probably committed an offence in terms of the risks caused by the out-of-control falling drone as well as the criminal damage.

"In UK law, airspace begins at the surface of the land and sea, extending outwards and upward. This means any outdoor space above ground is considered airspace, regardless of ownership." Obviously you also need to be safe, which might be a few feet above the ground, or 15 feet above someone's head or 10 ft above a roof. Whilst there are some clear rules a lot of it is also common sense and based on the circumstances.

You can defend twat's rights to fly over people's houses all you like but no one who is being bothered by a drone is going to think "Oh I had better not damage THEIR property" if it is over their own house. I strongly suspect we are going to read more stories about angry teens who have been peeking in windows, thieves looking to access and see if people are on holiday, peadophiles and people with probate restrictions perving at kids who get upset because their ££ drone has been shot out of the sky. I will not be crying for them and suspect the police would be asking a lot of questions as to why their drone was bothering that particular house and looking for footage it may have taken...