Not Everything that Flies is Legalized. Authorities Want to Regulate the Use of Drones

The use of drones in the Republic of Moldova’s airspace could be regulated according to the example of the EU law. The Government has recently announced in a press release that the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) is preparing a regulation on the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (drones), but the draft document has not been made public yet. It has been announced that the regulation will provide certain restrictions on the use of drones, as well as a mechanism for obtaining the right to use and shoot with such devices. Subject-matter experts are also worried that the authorities, do not introduce too drastic regulations to this, under the pretext of respecting the right to privacy.

The Government's press release regarding the regulation of unmanned aerial vehicles was issued after representatives of the Executive met on Thursday, 19 July, in a special working meeting focused on this topic, attended by Prime Minister Pavel Filip, employees of the aviation authority and of the National Center for Personal Data Protection. 

According to the press release, the drones will first have to be registered by means of a standard procedure. The application to register the aerial vehicles can be submitted online, together with the affidavit. After the registration procedure, the drone identification document will be issued, which will contain a QR code. At the same time, the owner will be informed about the rules of its use in the airspace.

One of the rules prohibits the use of drones in certain areas (called restricted areas), such as embassies, border regions, prisons and various strategic sites.

Besides that, a separate mechanism will be provided to obtain a preliminary permit for filming drones. The procedure for issuing the permit for video recording will be stipulated in the draftLaw on the Regime of Video Equipment, developed by the National Center for Personal Data Protection (NCPDP).

The NCPDP draft, which has already been made public, prohibits video surveillance with drones within the built-up area of rural and/or urban localities, except for video/audio recording for journalistic, artistic, cultural or scientific purposes, when some public events take place, for example: concert, protest, cinema production, meeting, theatricals.

At the same time, the NCPDP’s document stipulates that these exceptions are valid only if a permit is issued by the Civil Aviation Authority.

In order to protect people’s privacy, the draft law envisages that the open countryside may be surveilled by drones provided that ‘an adequate level of detail is ensured that does not violate the reasonable privacy’.

Previously, during the information campaign on the European rules for the use of drones, CAA published several additional restrictions in this regard. Thus, in the information leaflets we find that in the EU space it is forbidden to fly higher than 120 meters, to fly over crowds of people, to take photos, shoot, and audio record people without their permission and to fly near private property without the owner consent.

European Aviation Safety Agency rules on the use of unmanned aircraft. Source: flyer, distributed by CAA on 12 May 2018. 

Media-azi tried to get the draft of the Regulation mentioned above. Irina Gasca, head of the CAA press service, said that the document was still under development, and it was expected to be presented to the general public at the end of the current week (27 July).

Oleg Tofilat, a civil aviation consultant and former state secretary at the Ministry of Transport and Road Infrastructure, is worried about the content of the press release issued by the Government. He does not exclude that the Moldovan authorities are preparing a version of the ‘very restrictive’ regulation, recently adopted in Romania, but subsequently annulled by the Constitutional Court.

The expert worries the most about the Regulation’s provisions on ’privacy and other restrictions not related to flight safety’.

The Moldovan authorities' initiative comes less than a month after the adoption of similar measuresin the European Union, where the Council of the European Union approved updated aviation safety rules on 26 June. These include the first community-level regulations on civil drones of all sizes. The European rules on drones lay down the basic principles to ensure safety, security, privacy, data protection and environmental protection. The text establishes the registration threshold for drone operators: operators must be registered if their drones are capable of transferring more than 80 Joules of kinetic energy upon impact with a person.

The European regulation will be published in the EU Official Gazette most likely by the end of July and will enter into force 20 days after its publication.

The European Commission estimates that by 2035 the European sector of drones will create directly jobs for more than 100,000 people and will have an economic impact of over EUR 10 billion a year, especially in the field of services.