Drones and law - Issues and legal insights

A drone can be defined as an unmanned aircraft, i.e. an aircraft that is powered without a pilot on board, and is either fully remote-controlled from another location, or programmed and autonomous. While technically correct, this definition does little credit to the revolutionary nature of this technology, which has recently undergone a major quantitative and qualitative leap forward, both in terms of technical improvements and in terms of use and awareness.

In addition to the purely recreational aspect , – can be used for a– wide range of purposes: freight transport, inspection of engineering structures, precision agriculture, surveillance, photogrammetry, cartography, forestry, etc.

The economic development of the sector is extremely important in countries that have introduced regulations, and the demand for a legal framework is therefore strong in countries that have not yet addressed the issue. From a legal point of view, it's true that it's complicated to reconcile conflicting objectives. On the one hand, the safety of airspace users, the protection of privacy, the protection of the "privileges" of certain professions... On the other, economic recovery, the need to integrate modernity into various practices and the relentless advance of a popular technology.

This article sets out the main legal issues surrounding drones, and the legislative and regulatory initiatives taken at various levels of government to address them.

The first part of the article defines and categorizes the different types of vectors. The second part gives an overview of possible civil and commercial uses, while the third recalls the history of this technology and some perspectives. Part four looks briefly at the ethical and legal aspects of the use of military UAVs, as well as some of the global issues surrounding civilian UAVs. The fifth and sixth sections consider the regulations applicable to civil and commercial UAVs at international and European level, and finally at two national levels, Belgium and France.