Beyond airspace safety: a feminist perspective on drone privacy regulation

The impact of drones on women's privacy has garnered sensational media attention, headlining stories about drones spying on sunbathing women and girls, or being used to stalk or harass women in public spaces. Despite this popular attention, questions about how the drone might differentially enhance or undermine privacy have received relatively little academic and regulatory reflection. This chapter examines how drone technology can be especially apt to impact women's privacy. Furthermore, examining some of the differential impacts of the technology helps to reveal broader inequities that can go unattended when technology is regulated without considering social context. Drone regulators cannot continue to treat the technology as though it is value-neutral, impacting all individuals in the same manner. The social context in which drone technology is used must inform both drone-specific regulations, and privacy law more generally.

Section: Robot Law: Volume II