MPAA, NAB, RTDNA Encourage NTIA To Adopt Few Privacy Rules for Drone Use

MPAA, NAB and the Radio Television Digital News Association encouraged a laissez-faire approach to privacy concerns about drone use (see 1504240057 and 1504200045), in comments filed with NTIA last week. Though small unmanned aircraft systems can raise privacy issues, MPAA said, the “narrow and controlled use” of drones by its motion picture, home video and TV industry members “doesn’t implicate the ‘sustained, pervasive, and invasive’ data collection" that the NTIA inquires about. MPAA said its members use drones on closed sets and that the devices “neither come into close contact with -- nor engage in the ‘collection, use, retention, and dissemination’ of data regarding -- the general public.” Footage is constrained “both aerial and otherwise,” and everyone on set has notice when drones are in use, MPAA said. “We do not believe any additional privacy practices are needed regarding our industry’s use” of drones, MPAA said. In a joint comment, NAB and RTDNA said the news industry is committed to consumer privacy and that state laws adequately deal with privacy concerns NTIA hopes to address. Drones could be used to invade privacy, the groups said, but journalists already are equipped to recognize and address privacy issues raised by new technologies, they said. Regulating drone use could violate free speech, they said, because news reports, especially breaking news stories, may inadvertently violate strict privacy rules due to their dependence on the “rapid dissemination of captured sights and sounds,” they said. “State legislatures and courts have adopted and interpreted a range of laws flexible enough to respond to issues raised by emerging technologies, including UAS use by commercially motivated individuals who are unlikely to adhere" to any NTIA codes of conduct.