On February 15, 2015, President Obama issued the Presidential Memorandum "Promoting Economic Competitiveness While Safeguarding Privacy, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties in Domestic Use of Unmanned Aircraft Systems." The Presidential Memorandum stated: "As UAS are integrated into the National Air Space (NAS), the Federal Government will take steps to ensure that the integration takes into account not only our economic competitiveness and public safety, but also the privacy, civil rights, and civil liberties concerns these systems may raise." The Presidential Memorandum establishes a "multi-stakeholder engagement process to develop and communicate best practices for privacy, accountability, and transparency issues regarding commercial and private UAS use in the NAS." The process will include stakeholders from industry, civil society, and academia, and will be initiated by the Department of Commerce, through National Telecommunications & Information Administration (NTIA), and in consultation with other interested agencies.
NTIA's role in the multi-stakeholder process is to provide a forum for discussion and consensus-building among stakeholders. When stakeholders disagree, NTIA's role is to help the parties reach clarity on what their positions are and whether there are options for compromise toward consensus, rather than substituting its own judgment. Furthermore, this stakeholder group is not an advisory committee, as neither NTIA nor any other Federal agency or office will seek consensus advice or recommendations on policy issues from participants in this multi-stakeholder process. Public stakeholder meetings will be webcast, and there will be an opportunity for stakeholders viewing the webcast to participate remotely in the meetings through a moderated conference bridge.
On March 5, 2015, NTIA sought public comment regarding privacy, accountability, and transparency issues concerning UAS. Individuals and entities in the commercial, academic, civil society, and government sectors filed comments. Stakeholders at the May 18, 2016 meeting agreed to conclude the process, and a diverse group of stakeholders came to consensus on a best practices document. This document was updated at the request of stakeholders on June 21, 2016, to include background information and reaction, but it does not include any changes to the UAS best practices agreed to on May 18, 2016.
The stakeholders that support this best practices document include: Amazon, Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI), Center for Democracy and Technology, Commercial Drone Alliance, Consumer Technology Association, CTIA, Future of Privacy Forum, Intel, New America's Open Technology Institute, PrecisionHawk, X (Formerly Google [x]), Small UAV Coalition, Online Trust Alliance (OTA), News Media Coalition, Newspaper Association of America (NAA), National Association of Broadcasters (NAB), Radio Television Digital News Association (RTDNA), Digital Content Next (DCN), Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA), NetChoice, U.S. Chamber of Commerce. (Link: https://www.ntia.doc.gov/other-publication/2016/multistakeholder-process-unmanned-aircraft-systems)
The increased use of drones for civilian applications has presented many countries with regulatory challenges. Such challenges include the need to ensure that drones are operated safely, without harming public and national security, and in a way that would protect areas of national, historical, or natural importance. A variety of the countries surveyed in this report have also made efforts to address concerns regarding the property and privacy rights of landowners or other persons impacted by the operation of drones. (Link: https://www.loc.gov/law/help/regulation-of-drones/index.php)
Drones—unmanned, remotely piloted, aerial vehicles, short UAVs—are now used by the armed forces of approximately 70 countries around the world. The club of armed UAV holders remains more exclusive; for the moment, its members only include Israel, the United Kingdom, the United States, and most likely China and Iran. This situation, however, is likely to change sooner rather than later with many countries considering the procurement of armed drones. Unconfirmed reports indicate that the U.S. military, security forces, and Intelligence Community operate over 10,000 drones. (Link: http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pubs/parameters/issues/Spring_2014/12A_Franke-ReviewEssays.pdf)
Turkey, Syria, Iran, Russia, the U.S., Britain and Iraq all have used drones in the Iraq-Syria region. Kurdish militias, Syrian rebel forces, and the Hezbollah and IS have also used some form of drones. While the Pentagon tries to keep its drone program covert, it has admitted several times in recent months to striking specific IS targets with drones, according to news reports. Among the targets was Islamic State's Jihadi John, who was shown in gruesome videos beheading U.S. and Western hostages. The drone program, which is run by the CIA and the Joint Special Operation Command, largely operates out of a Turkish military base (Link: http://www.voanews.com/a/military-drones-flood-war-skies-over-syria-and-iraq/3330150.html)