Drone Data-Mining: Coming to a Home Near You

• Author: John M. McNichols
• Pages: 2-3

Published in Litigation News Volume 47, Number 3, Spring 2022. © 2022 b y the American Bar Ass ociation. Reproduc ed with permission. A ll rights reserv ed. This information or an y portion there of may not be copied or dis seminated in any

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By John M. McN ichols, Litigatio n News Associate Editor

Drone Data-Mining: Coming to a

Home Near You

drones have existed in varying forms since Venice’s war for

independence from the Hapsburg Empire in 1849, when

Austrian soldiers used balloons to drop bombs on their adver-

saries. The term “drone”—a reference to a male worker bee—

dates to the 1930s and the U.S. military’s development of the

“Queen Bee” biplane, which could be own under radio con-

trol for artillery target practice. Modern drones differ from

their predecessors not merely through advances in aviation

technology—many of today’s drones are helicopters—but also

through the adoption of robotics and articial intelligence,

which allow them to operate autonomously rather than under

direct remote control by a human user.

Drones have recently come to be used in a wide range of

civilian roles. When coupled with internet-of-things connec-

tivity, drones’ ability to collect and convey aerial observation

data in real time has made them invaluable for airborne sur-

veillance and photography, trafc and weather monitoring,

forest management, and agriculture.

The next wave appears to be delivery services. Multiple com-

panies, including Zipline, UPS, and Google-afliated Wing, have

moved beyond the testing stage and begun actual product deliv-

eries using drones. Although capabilities are currently limited to

relatively small packages and short distances—Amazon Prime

Air, for example, proposes to cap package size at ve pounds

© Getty Image s

he U.S. military made headlines in January 2020

for killing Iranian General Qassem Soleimani

with a missile launched from an unmanned aircraft,

or “drone.” But General Soleimani was hardly the

only prominent gure killed via drone strike during

the war on terror. Valued for their ability to conduct military

operations remotely and autonomously—greatly reducing the

risk to American servicemembers—drones have been one of

the most notable developments in military technology over

the past two decades.

At the same time, their potential civilian and commercial

uses have not gone unnoticed. The same unmanned aircraft

that can deliver a surface-to-air missile over the moun-

tains of Afghanistan is equally capable of delivering pack-

ages in the residential neighborhoods of Scarsdale or Boise.

Unsurprisingly, therefore, companies have eagerly explored

potential civilian applications for drones, prompting concerns

about having such powerful technology under purely private

control. Even so, over the past decade, the U.S. government

seems to have diminished regulation and expanded access.

What Is a Drone?

A drone is any pilotless aircraft. More formally known as

“unmanned aerial vehicles” or “unmanned aircraft systems,”

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TECHNOLOGY