UN Aviation Agency To Call For Global Drone Registry (reuters.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: The United Nations' aviation agency is backing the creation of a single global drone registry, as part of broader efforts to come up with common rules for flying and tracking unmanned aircraft. While the International Civil Aviation Organization cannot impose regulations on countries, ICAO has proposed formation of the registry during a Montreal symposium this month to make data accessible in real time, said Stephen Creamer, director of ICAO's air navigation bureau. The single registry would eschew multiple databases in favor of a one-stop-shop that would allow law enforcement to remotely identify and track unmanned aircraft, along with their operator and owner. It's not yet clear who would operate such a database, although ICAO could possibly fill that role. The proposal, however, could face push back from users, after hobbyists successfully challenged the creation of a U.S. drone registry by the Federal Aviation Administration in court earlier this year.

Comments

Re:while they're at it

[Strider-]

Might as well register all guns, vehicles, and computers with a central, global agency.

I'm not going to touch your comments about firearms or computers, but in terms of vehicles, there are a number of registries that already exist and work reasonably effectively.

The most obvious one, in this case, is aircraft registration. All civil, manned aircraft (not quite sure about ultralights etc...) all have a nationally assigned registration. The registration number must be shown in a prominent location on the aircraft, and can be used by pretty much anyone to look up the ownership of the aircraft.

Another example is in the maritime world. Nearly all vessels beyond a canoe or row boat now carry a VHF radio with DSC capabilities. This includes an MMSI (Maritime Mobile Service Identifier) which is a globally unique registration number for that vessel/owner. The various national authorities collect that data, and maintain it, and then upload it into the global systems. No matter where a person goes in the world, if they punch the distress button, the responsible rescue center is able to retrieve vessel information, contact information, and other bits that are useful as part of a rescue situation. In the commercial world, every commercial vessel is assigned an IMO number that stays with a ship from when it comes off the ways until it ends its service at a ship breaker. With it, you can retrieve the full history of that ship... Names, flags, ownership.

So, does registering your 2lb drone that can carry an itty bitty camera, make sense? no, it doesn't. But does a standardized way of handling registration for larger autonomous aircraft (Amazon's drones, etc...) make sense? I think so. The trick is finding an appropriate threshold.