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Law Regarding to Drones and Biometrics

Executive Summary
This paper talks about drones and biometrics. These are two things that are taking over our world today since they are new inventions. Due to this, they need to be studied longer since this is their time. In this article, we look at both these inventions, the laws that govern them, the threat they pose to their environment as well as a recommendation on how they can be utilized better.
I. Present Scenario for drones and biometrics.
a. What is Drones?
Drones are defined as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that are controlled in one of two ways, the first of which is done by personnel on the ground who direct the drone’s entire activities from takeoff to landing. The other way of controlling drones is by using autonomous programs that follow a strictly defined pre-defined mission. Such drones are fitted with electronic chips that contain the autonomous programs.
Based on their roles, drones generally fall into two simple categories: those that are fitted with weapons like bombs and missiles and are used to covertly attack an enemy’s position or target. The second category includes those that are used for reconnaissance and investigative purposes. Over the past few years, the use of drones has risen because they can remain airborne for several hours unlike traditional aircraft flown by a human being. They are also fairly inexpensive to build compared to military jets. The fact that they can be operated remotely means that they do not expose any persons to potential dangers (in the case of those used in conflict zones).
The uses for drones in the civilian sector are plenty; they include commercial and hobby interests. The use of drones for commercial purposes includes use of them by a retailer to deliver products to a customer. Amazon.com pioneered this idea. They can also be used to provide or improve internet services in remote areas of the world. They can also replace helicopters in the field of news gathering. They can also be used to take aerial photographs to help various businesses such as those that have a need for aerial photographs, such as real estate businesses.
b. What is Biometrics?
Biometrics is the identification of a person’s identity using various physical traits. It makes use of quantifiable human physiological characteristics such as fingerprints, face recognition, palm print identification, iris and retina identification, and DNA to identify a person and allow the control of his or her ability to access various locations of a secure environment. It can also make use of behavioral attributes such as a person’s voice, and walking style to identify him. The use of biometrics is also increasingly being used in the identification of various persons that are being shriveled. The use of biometrics for these stated purposes is totally different from conventional means of identification that include a person’s ID number, his or her passport or driver’s license.
II. Problems associated with drone and biometric use
a. Problems facing drones
Civilian drone controllers, in the United States at least, face the most challenges, for instance for a civilian flier in the United States to land his or her drone in a busy airport he must possess a valid pilot’s license. He must also pass an aviation-related medical inspection, he has to be helped by a spotter He also has to ask for permission from the airport authorities two days in advance, he has to fly at speeds not exceeding 56 kilometers per hour and at an altitude not exceeding 300 feet. These requirements, introduced in early 2015, are better than the outdated ones that explicitly restricted flying drones close to any operating airports. These challenges come after one has obtained his or her special airworthiness certificate from the Federal Administration Authority. Getting this certification from the FAA is a bigger challenge. Amazon.com just recently got their experimental airworthiness certificate after several months.
Privacy issues also beset the use of drones. Those against their use argue that they can be used by people with malicious intentions to spy on other individuals. Because some drones are very small in size and do not use any fuel, they tend to be very silent, and can consequently stay hidden right above someone’s compound, and eavesdrop on any conversations taking place, maybe even take a few unauthorized photographs or videos that might compromise one’s credibility in the community if they appear in public.
In 2009, the FAA issued a public notice that banned the use of remote controlled aircraft close to stadiums. It made doing so an offense that could land one in prison for up to one year. Such an event should be encouraged as the FAA is seeking to prevent injuries or death to any of the spectators in the stadiums should the drone controller lose control of the drone. In March 2014, a Brooklyn resident was fined by the FAA after his drone struck two Manhattan buildings and narrowly missed hitting a pedestrian, and in August the same year a small drone crashed into a stand at the Virginia Motorsports Park resulting in injuries to three spectators.
b. Problems facing biometrics.
The use of biometrics also faces several challenges regarding privacy, personal safety, and ease of cancelation. Privacy issues come up when data acquired through biometric registration is used for purposes other than those for which the registered individual agreed to at the time the registration. With regards to privacy, biometrics faces three issues: unintended purpose scope (the biometric data is used for purposes that go beyond actual authentication, for instance using a biometric security system that makes use of a person’s DNA data to check the person for a wide variety of genetic illnesses or other unwanted genetic traits); inadvertent use (the biometric system is used to ascertain a person's identity rightly when the person did not want his identity to be revealed); and clandestine identification (use of biometrics to identify a person without his prior consent for identification).
Another challenge facing Biometrics is the use of excessive force when malicious individuals such as thieves and burglars cannot break into installations protected by biometric systems. In such situation, they will mostly resort to using deadly force to gain access to the installations. For example, the owner of a house whose entry is only allowed by a biometric security system that requires iris identification might have his eyes gouged by burglars who are hell-bent on entering the house. In 2005, the owner of a Mercedes-Benz S-Class car had his finger cut chopped by would-be car thieves who wanted to gain access to the car. The car could only be started by having the owner place his thumb on the car’s biometric security system for fingerprint identification.
Unlike conventional security systems such as passwords and keycards, biometrics does not allow for easy cancelation of stored biometric data. If a person’s fingerprint is stolen and duplicated, they cannot have it reissued or changed.
In these cases, the issue that has been addressed is Privacy. Privacy is common in both cases, even though, their concern differs. The issue of privacy has been a concern especially when it comes to drones, this is because drones are crafts that can travel further and up such that it might not be possible to see them on some occasion. Because of this, it has been used to spy on some countries, for instance, one of the United States drones was intercepted in china where the US was supposedly spying on the country. It has also been used to carry out attacks on various leaders such as those in Somalia and Iraq after trailing them for long. If this could happen to them, then it means it can happen to anyone. Someone with a twisted mind might get an access to drone and use it to do something illegal. Biometrics are safe, but they work best to make an environment that is already safe, safer. In an unsafe environment, they do not guarantee safety, and instead they might pose danger. As it has been seen, in some cases criminal can chop off human parts just to access whatever it is that has been protected by biometrics. What this means is that it does not guarantee anyone safety.
Privacy almost goes hand in hand with public safety. Drones are mechanical objects, and this means that they can malfunction anytime even when airborne. Therefore, they might crash somewhere crowded this leading to casualty. Because of this regulation is required to have only certified persons fly these objects. They should also follow regulation and not fly then anytime but during certain periods. No flying zones should also be included especially in crowded places such as stadiums to reduce the risk of accidents. When it comes to biometrics, there should not be a major regulation on it since it can be compared to password. All that should be done is ensuring better security so that the use of biometrics can be more effective.
III. Solution Recommendations.
a. Drones
This remarkable and a sharp increase in the use of drones has-been attributed to the fact that policies regarding their use had virtually been non-existent before their instant arrival on civilian markets around 2009 and 2010. This prompted ICAO to issue a circular that mandated that drones have to exhibit similar safety properties as traditional manned aircraft. ICAO is an agency of the United Nations whose role it is to collect and organize information regarding international air navigation.
Different countries define their individual rules and guidelines that regulate the use of drones. In the United States, for instance, a civilian wishing to fly drones through the National Airspace System must acquire a special airworthiness certificate for his or her specific drone. The Federal Aviation Administration issued an order (FAA Order 8130.34) that defines the procedures for the issuance of this certificate, together with stating the certifications needed for the drone mechanical aspects and its operations.
Policies regarding the use of drones should be passed with utmost urgency to keep up with their increasing sales. Because the passing of these legislations take a long time, there is a legal gray area regarding drones whereby there are laws specifically designed for drones and unmanned aerial vehicles. The only solution to this is Congress and Senate should work together to come up with definitive federal laws that govern the use of drones. The FAA is doing its very best with the orders and directives it issued regarding the use of drones near airports and stadiums. These orders, however, do little to protect the average individual at home who risks being spied upon by someone with a drone. Having fences around one’s house no longer guarantees privacy.
Currently, a little over 20 states in the U.S. have passed local laws that govern the use of drones by law enforcement agencies for surveillance purposes. The laws go as far as defining how the information gathered by a surveillance drone can is used. It is, therefore, important for the remaining states to follow suit and pass their laws. The laws passed by the states all make it a requirement that before a drone is used for surveillance purposes, that probable cause should be proven to warrant the authorization of the use of the surveillance drones. Carrying out surveillance on a suspect using drones (or whichever means), without proper authorization amounts to breaching the suspect’s privacy.
Other countries followed suit, South Africa’s South African Civil Aviation Authority, in 2014allowed drones to use its airspace. Before this point, it had made it clear it did not entertain any drones. It was cracking down on illegal drone flights through its airspace by fining the offenders controlling them up to 50,000 Rand, or imprisoning them for up to 10 years. In the United Kingdom, the Civil Aviation Authority specified that civilian drones weighing more than 20 kilograms have to possess the ability to detect other aircraft and navigate themselves to evade them.
b. Biometrics
The biggest problem facing biometrics is the privacy issues. To overcome them it is important to create in-house guidelines that govern the use of Biometric data, to ensure that it is not misused in any way to conduct non-authentication-related checks and tests. By doing this, every person who has had his Biometric data captured will be assured that there no supplementary checks being carried out on his data, to which he has not consented.
It will be important to introduce laws that restrict identification of a person who does not want be identified (such as when he is in a crowd). Such laws can make it a requirement of Biometric system end-users to ensure that they do not use any Biometric systems to gather data in instances when the individual whose data is being collected has not given any consent. Law enforcement agencies that need to gather biometric data on suspected individuals should avoid using covert means to gather the same. They should instead obtain warrants that permit them to covertly gather the data before gathering it.
As it has been seen, the laws on drones in the US is still limiting, and those flying the aircraft are not able to do so freely. An example is Amazon Company. The company was frustrated before it finally got a license to fly drones. Therefore, congress can do better by coming up with regulations that can allow drones to be flown freely and safely. This involves implementing laws such as those released in 2015. The weight of the drone should be set, and the proximity should also be set in such a way that they go hand in hand. For instance, small drones should be flown within sight while heavy ones can go further than them. The altitude in which the plane should fly should also be set as well as the speed in which the plane could fly. According to the regulations that were released by FAA, drones that weigh up to 55 pounds should be flown within the sight of their pilots during the day. The aircraft should also not go above 500 feet and it speed should not exceed 100mph. this law has also set an age limit for the drone and only 17 years olds who have passed the test on aeronautics and have undergone a vetting by the Transport Security administrator should be allowed to fly the aircrafts.
These are the laws that congress should consider setting up, but they should come up with laws that are friendly. There is no doubt that the American air is filled with aircrafts. However, that should not be an excuse to come up with measures that are stringent. The congress should recognize that the commercial use of drone is something that is now become widely accepted, and it cannot be stopped. Instead, they should come up with laws that will result in a win-win situation. Businesses using drones should benefit, and the safety in the airspace should also be maintained. Thus, the proposal by the FAA is a sign that that the congress in the process of integrating done into the united states airspace. The plan to invite comments and suggestion from stakeholders also shows a commitment by the congress to include the drones in the United States airspace.
III. Conclusion
Indeed, numerous technological advancements exist in the world today. Among these advancements are drone aircraft and biometric technologies that provide crucial and critical uses in contemporary setting that ever before.
Unlike traditional aircrafts, drones remain in the air for relatively longer periods, and they are inexpensive in comparison to military jets makes their use dynamic. In addition, they can provide access to internet in remote zones of the world. Besides, businesses like Amazon are proposing the use of drone for commercial purposes, as they have the capability of aiding in their logistics and supply sector. Since they can be manned without a pilot, drones also assist in intelligence gathering and attacking enemy targets in conflict zones.
Just like drones, biometrics is also an invaluable innovation. Their use is surpassing conventional approaches to a person's identification in effectiveness. Specifically, it is useful in security systems and can enhance countering terrorism.
The use of drones and biometrics is confronted with numerous challenges despite their usefulness. For example, the guidelines on the use of drones limit civilian populations that intend to use them. In most cases, obtaining airworthiness certificate is a significant problem. Opponents of drone use claim that they may intrude people's privacy when used by malicious people. Similarly, biometric use faces problems of privacy, personal safety, and even cancelation. Persons with malicious objectives or agendas could us an individual’s information for unintended purposes. With biometric systems, the safety of individuals may be at risk, as they may have their body parts such as fingers or eyes removed by thieves in order to access certain properties illegally. While conventional security systems such as passwords and keycards allow easy cancelation, biometrics provide the direct opposite, which presents an enormous challenge.
Irrespective of their importance and usefulness, the use of drones and biometrics is prone to numerous challenges and shortcomings. Therefore, I believe that the implementation of some of the recommendations outlined in this paper will critically help in their increased use.
IV. References
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