You may have gasped with disbelief the first time you saw a photograph of a drone home-delivering a box from Amazon or cakes from a bakery or carrying a bag of crisps. Until recently, this was the stuff of science fiction. Your initial reaction was probably: \u201cAmazing \u2026 but will it ever take off?\u201d<\/p>\n
Drones \u2013 or unmanned aerial vehicles, as we once called them \u2013 have now become capable of lifting and delivering on the back of continued research and technological ingenuity. Amazon has recently been trialling drones in Australia<\/a> and the UK<\/a>, but don\u2019t get too excited: this is likely to be an exception rather than a norm. The practical reality of using drones in cities remains far away and is getting ever more distant.<\/p>\n There are already too many potential problems to let drones fly with sufficiently loose restrictions in cities to make a delivery business viable. One major issue is drones interfering with aircraft, thanks to surging numbers of near-misses<\/a>. Drones are also increasingly<\/a> being used to fly drugs and other contraband into prisons.<\/p>\n In the US, there have been fears about<\/a> camera-equipped drones stalking celebrities for paparazzi. There have also been stories about invasive drone surveillance, both on behalf of the state<\/a> and private individuals<\/a>.<\/p>\n The biggest backlog of legal cases in the US is reportedly<\/a> drone claims over issues including safety, noise, damage, personal intrusion and privacy. The whole area is a growing business for lawyers, with drone law journals<\/a> springing up and fierce debates over whether, for example<\/a>, drones fall within the definition of aircraft for legal purposes.<\/p>\n New US flight rules introduced last August did lead some optimists to predict<\/a> a new business opportunity that could create 100,000 new jobs, but the reality is that the whole sector is in a mess. The US Federal Aviation Authority has explicitly<\/a> said drone deliveries are off limits, at least pending further research into their consequences.<\/p>\n At the same time, technologies are emerging that are designed to down drones. Your initial reaction might be that these will never work either, but I\u2019m not so sure.<\/p>\nDrone law<\/h3>\n