Hobby drones are small-sized drones which are used for recreational, sports, entertainment and other personal uses. Their flight-time is generally a few hours. Their usage for photography, video filming and agricultural purposes has seen a surge in recent years. At the same time, the inseparable problem of their transcending the personal privacy and trespassing of the property has become a concern for many affectees. This has led to criticism and resentment regarding the unfettered usage of hobby drones.
Although, not mentioned specifically in any statute in Pakistan, yet flying drones across and over private property can be looked as something unacceptable and rather criminal in nature and outlook. However, the biggest perceived threats come from how commercial and research drones can be used beyond the horizons of just flying over people’s heads, sometimes referred as, ‘dual-use’ technology. When drones made their first appearance in markets, it could hardly be perceived that the intrusion in the privacy of life and property will assume a magnitude of this extent. The initially perceived concerns of those times were the possibilities of physical injuries. Such as, the blades being sharp enough to cause cuts, lacerations, and avulsion of fingers. A still higher concern could be someone attaching a firearm for criminal activities like attacking an affluent or high value target. Both ideas first seemed almost difficult to achieve; One being that blades being made sharp enough, dense & heavy would just harm the drone itself and it’s capacity. The latter being that installing literally any firearm to a drone would be impossible with the common assumptions being;
1) The weight of firearm itself plus the added weight of it’s ammunition would bring the drone down itself or tilt it’s balance. Making hard for it to maneuver in midair.
2) It would be impossible to stabilize the drone and it’s firearm to fire controlled shots.
3) The recoil pressure from the gun itself would do the harm to the drone. Just as the gas inside a barrel expands during explosion.
4) Any calibre / bore below any intermediate cartridge would just be inaccurate and ineffective to fire in midair (considering the blow / direction of wind. Stability and density of the drone).
5) Firearms are designed for humans, to be fired by humans. There is no easy way to even install a pistol or a sub-gun to a drone and achieve any easy firing capability.
However, this does not rule out the possibility to achieve it for one-time use. Especially, with the proliferation of homemade Kamikaze drones and the ‘know-how’, to refashion a commercial one. On the contrary, these hobby drones still can cause laceration wounds, avulsion / amputation of fingers and other injurious accidents. There are many recently published and current ongoing studies on the injuries and risks of drones, with the most common being facial, ocular and cranial injuries, then electric shocks and burns due to sparks or overheat.
The recent incident of a drone crashing into Aseefa Bhutto, a prominent young Pakistani politician on 4th of March 2022 during a public procession, just bears evidence to a growing pile of physical dangers they pose. She suffered cuts on her face, over the zygomatic bone on the right-side, next to her eye, which can still be regarded as fatal.
The real concerns started to rise when for the first time a Motherboard documentary exhibited how a drone operator hacked a secondary drone using his own drone and create a couplet of two hovering machines with one being completely in control of the other. This has driven the arms race for another previously less-thought-of capability, ‘loitering-munitions’. Drones dropping payload, IED, other munitions, self-exploding into, or acting as forward observers to carry out attacks.
This isn’t completely new. The use of both commercial and military drones dropping improvised munitions, mapping battlefields has been going on since 2014. The conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh also alerted many to the effectiveness of drone-swarms, especially those manufactured for small-scale, specific purposes by aerospace and defense companies. Then, there is also the psychological effect of drones during conflicts. Many forces and non-state actors in the Middle East have used swarms or a handful of drones to just hover in the air to create panic, anxiety and exhaustion among rival / enemy forces during skirmishes and exchange of fire. The use of this method has also been witnessed in the current Russia-Ukraine conflict by a few of Ukrainian volunteers & it’s irregular forces alongside their new fleet of combative drones made by Turkey. Not only that, but drones have also become a standard fleet of low-level and large criminal enterprises to conduct reconnaissance vigils and attacks on their rivals and law enforcement, and for cross-border smuggling. Drug cartels in Mexico have greatly utilized drones to drop explosives on their targets and spread propaganda among other uses.
The Current Scenario
Currently, there are no actual laws or restrictions in place to regulate drone flyers or halt their activity. However, local authorities or administrations do unfairly announce ‘generic bans’ that have no legality. They harass or charge experienced flyers or videographers with drones through detention, confiscation or false allegations.
Recently, the government announced the creation of a whole new authority to deal with the use of drones according to their weight. But the proposed draft rules won’t be applicable in the long run, as the market and technology constantly shifts, inter-alia for some of the reasons mentioned below;
- Classifying drones according to weight doesn’t help. Just as newer, lighter versions of drones are made, matching their use-specification to their weight will be incongruous:-
i) More specialized small drones, with considerably more weight may get rejected.
ii) Locally produced drones with the same specifications of internationally manufactured ones may still weigh more and also face bureaucracy.
Instead of using weight, a ‘specification / type of use’ stamped / labelled by a manufacturer on a drone can be used to permit drones to a flyer, according to his or her demanded needs.
- Any style of licensing will not work and creating tiers will open up opportunities for more bribery and other forms of corruption. An inexperienced person may get a license with no prior learning and qualification. Instead, mandatory training with multiple kinds of drones and a certificate to qualify will work. Where your scores and efficiency can easily determine the eligibility of a certificate to fly any type of drone. This will be easy to modify or cancel and it can easily be internationally recognized as a credential in other countries and institutes.
- Drone flyers should have mandatory training and learning of different types of drones and not just one to qualify for a drone. They should then have to pass practical and theoretical testing.
Simply put, over-regulation of drones will encourage corruption and smuggling of drones to circumvent restrictions. It will hinder competition also. Pakistan is very different compared to other countries in a lot of ways, which is why it shouldn’t imitate a complete image of others’ which may give rise to it’s same problems differently in the future. People will have to deal with bureaucratic hurdles which can grow burdensome over time. Just as actual aircraft pilots go through different sets of training, from a Cessna to a passenger aircraft and all their details. Similar requirements should be made as a large majority of drone flyers use their drones in urban areas, and such a requirement may reduce the chances of mishaps.
The entities facing the most losses in the market are universities and domestic drone manufacturers. To create even a sample prototype, they have to navigate through a complex web of no-objections and word-of-mouth permissions from various departments. This stretches a two month manufacturing process to almost a year or more. Students and manufacturers are unable to achieve their finishing mark and guarantee their clients. If given the green light and R&D tax reliefs, domestic drones can bring prices down to an affordable minimum, the quality will be improved and exportable. Many gaps can be filled, and a good share of market will drive further innovations. From a threat’s perspective, motivated criminals and terrorists can never be prevented to misuse and obtain this technology by restrictions on law-abiding citizens. As evidenced in the past, threat actors have been usually eliminated through intelligence-led raids, targeted surveillance, and reporting by citizens on suspicious activities, which is unrelated to the market availability of drones. The sale, purchase and use of drones should not be banned upon assumptions, which mislabel an enthusiast as a domestic terrorist or a spy.
For now, it still seems far-fetched that any well-informed regulatory body will come into existence soon.
For further reading:
https://tribune.com.pk/story/2331335/pakistans-silent-drone-revolution
https://www.popsci.com/technology/marines-grenade-drone-40/
Originally published at https://www.linkedin.com.
