By Samantha Masunaga
Imagine you’re standing in your front yard when a drone flies overhead, delivering a package to one of your neighbors.
The drone goes over your house, flying much lower than a helicopter could. Would that be considered trespassing? After all, you didn’t even order the package. What if the drone took pictures of you and everything else in your yard as it went by; is that allowed? What if it malfunctioned and fell on your head — who would be at fault?
These are some of the thorny legal questions that will have to be answered as companies such as Google parent Alphabet, Amazon and UPS start preparing for a future where delivery by drone is more widespread.
This month, Alphabet subsidiary Wing became the first company to operate a commercial drone delivery service in the United States: It ferried tissues, bottled water, cough drops and other products to people in Christiansburg, Va. The town has only about 21,000 residents, and Wing’s delivery service is only for the last mile of a package’s journey, but there are plans for more coverage in the future.
UPS got permission from the Federal Aviation Administration recently to operate delivery drones at university, hospital and corporate campuses. Amazon, meanwhile, has long been working on its robotic delivery service.
But there are still questions about how drone systems will navigate privacy and trespassing issues and concerns about noise.
“Legal precedent is very thin here,” said Arthur Holland Michel, co-director of the Center for the Study of the Drone at Bard College. “Little of the existing law is based specifically on drones.”
It’s also unclear who will be the ultimate arbiter for these concerns. The FAA is in charge of aircraft safety, but questions of privacy or trespassing could be left up to the states, said William Breetz, vice president of the Uniform Laws Commission, a nonprofit that drafts model legislation for states and began tackling drone laws more than two years ago.
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Do you own part of the airspace above your house or can a drone fly freely through?
Some property owners have argued that they own a certain amount of the airspace above their homes, meaning any drones that fly into that area without permission would be unwanted visitors.
Others have said you don’t own that when it comes to aircraft. Drones are categorized as aircraft, and the FAA has stipulated that no one has the right to interfere with the flight of an aircraft.
“There’s a lot of uncertainty now in the law for those kinds of issues,” said Robert Heverly, associate professor of law at Albany Law School.
Others have expressed concerns about what kinds of data delivery drones could gather on their flights. Amazon has a patent for a data analysis system that would use information the drone collected during its flight to help make recommendations for future purchases. For example, if the drone took an image of your dead lawn while it was delivering your package, perhaps you’d get more online ads for fertilizer.
While many local governments forbid the use of drones for surveillance, it’s unclear whether the activities described in Amazon’s data analysis patent would fall under that definition, Holland Michel said.
Current privacy standards were established long before the advent of drones, let alone potential drone delivery operations, he said.
If a drone has a glitch and drops its package on you, leaving you injured, who’s at fault?
In some cases, existing laws could apply. For example, if a delivery drone dropped a package that hit someone, the drone operator and his or her employer would most likely be liable — in line with standard rules on negligence, Heverly said. The same would likely apply to a drone that damaged property in the course of a delivery, Heverly said.
But it could get tricky if delivery companies employ subcontractors to operate the drones. Then the companies could defer responsibility to the contracted operator if something happened, though it depends on how much control the companies have over the subcontractors, Heverly said. The more restrictions the company has for its subcontractors, the more it could be considered the employer, meaning it would take on the liability.
How loud is too loud for a drone?
In April, Wing launched its first air delivery service in Canberra, Australia, and people complained that the drones were too noisy.
The Australian government later found that the they exceeded the daytime noise standard for the residential area. Wing developed a quieter propeller and promised other improvements.
Samantha Masunaga is a Los Angeles Times writer.