Slashdot Mirror
The Problem With Mandatory Drone Registration (roboticstrends.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Drone lawyer and commercial pilot Jonathan Rupprecht believes any drone registration plan is a necessary first step, but he's also doubtful that registering drones will be a valuable solution. "Who is going to regulate this? Point-of-sale? Wal-Mart? Best Buy?" he asked. "What if I'm ordering parts off the Internet and put them together? That's what the gun industry does." A registration number, he said, could quickly be lost if a drone is bought and sold multiple times. Rupprecht believes geofencing will produce far better results by preventing problems as opposed to trying to figure out who is responsible after something has happened.
Except a lot of the drone issues aren't criminals. The issues are inexperienced citizens doing stupid things. Telling people they need to register, and possibly need to read a pamphlet or take a test gets a fair bit more information out into the public, and hopefully stops at least one science teacher from dropping a drone on a crowd at the US Open, or flying it around airports.
The problem isn't that the majority people doing illegal things with quadcopters aren't acting maliciously, but are acting in ignorance. It's just like licensing people to drive: it forces them to learn the rules of the road, so fewer people will be ignorant of them.
Rawr
My grandmother learned to drive before there were licenses (1930s, rural Tennessee) - her first car had no functioning brakes, if you came to an intersection and there was cross traffic: veer into the field and come around again, there weren't that many cars out there, she almost never had to circle around twice before proceeding.
They work well as revenue generation, they don't stop criminals from doing illegal things.
I have no idea how registration will even stop or hinder drones flying where they shouldn't. Put fear into people they will be found out if the drone crashes? Blast an ID wherever you go?
Nah, the tech is there to do virtual avoidance areas. Bad guys will ignore it, or registration, anyway.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.