Over the past week, the U.S. government has made the largest, most influential set of changes to drone legislation we have yet seen – and decided that almost every drone in U.S. airspace should broadcast their locations, as well as the location of their pilots. to address “safety, national security and law enforcement issues regarding the further integration of these aircraft into United States airspace”.
Google (technically, Alphabet) is apparently not happy about the new rules. The company’s drone delivery subsidiary Wing wrote a somewhat scary post (via Reuters) entitled “Broadcast-Only Remote Identification of Drones May Have Unintended Consequences for U.S. Consumers”, which claims that the FAA’s decision to have drones broadcast their location could allow observers to track your movements and find out where you’re going. , where you live and where and when you receive packages, among others.
‘American communities do not accept this type of supervision over their deliveries or taxi rides on the road. They should not accept it in the air, ”adds Wing.
With that kind of language, you might think that Wing argues that drones should not broadcast their location, yes? Amusing no: the subsidiary of Alphabet just wants them to send it via the internet instead of broadcasting it locally. I think my ex CNET colleague Ian Sherr’s tweet is appropriate:
I’m shocked – shocked – that a company under investigation for antitrust issues over the abuse of its power on the internet would recommend the FAA reject its latest radio frequency ID program for internet based tracking. https://t.co/d6VNMPapth
– Ian Sherr (@iansherr) 31 December 2020
Incidentally, Internet-based detection is exactly what the FAA originally intended to do when it originally proposed the Remote ID rules in December 2019 – before receiving a laundry list of reasons from commentators as to why Internet-based detection may be problematic and deciding to do so to abandon. Here are some of the above:
- The cost of first adding a cellular modem to a drone
- The cost of paying a monthly cellular data plan just to fly a drone
- The Lack of Reliable Cellular Coverage across the US
- The cost of paying a third-party data broker to locate and store the data
- The possibility that that third party’s data broker could be breached
- The possibility that that data broker or network DDoS’de, get drones in the US
If you want to read the whole argument yourself, the FAA spends 15 pages explaining and considering all the objections to Internet-based Remote ID in its full line (PDF), from page 60.
Personally, I think it’s pretty ridiculous that the FAA felt that they had to choose between ‘everyone has to broadcast their location to everyone within earshot’ and ‘everyone has to pay money to the private industry and trust a data broker with their location,’ but the reasons why we are not internet based make sense to me.
Most proponents of Remote ID technology, including Wing, would like to explain that this is merely a “badge” for the air, perhaps nothing more intrusive than you would have in your car. Here’s Wing on it:
This allows a drone to be identified while flying without necessarily sharing the entire flight path or flight history of the drone, and that the information, which may be more sensitive, is not displayed to the public and is only available to law enforcers if they have the necessary papers and a reason to need the information.
But the thing with license plates is that you traditionally have to be within sight to see it. You need to physically track a car to locate it. This is not necessarily true of a broadcaster, and it is possible far less true of an internet-based solution like the Wing seems to wish the FAA offered sooner. It obviously depends on who owns the internet based solution and how much you trust and their security.
Either way, it’s going to take a while before we find out how secure or vulnerable, how wide or narrow these Remote ID broadcasts are really going to be. This is because the FAA’s final rule does not really determine what kind of broadcast technology drones should be used: companies have the next year and a half to figure it out, and they have to submit it to the FAA for approval. The FAA is also clear that broadcasting Remote ID is only a first step, an ‘initial framework’, suggesting that Internet-based Remote ID may still be an option in the future.