FAA Details About Drone Owners Will Be Publicly Avaliable

The Federal Aviation Administration has been talking recently about their plans for drone owners to have to register, recently releasing details about the system  and then outlining the criminal charges that will be placed on people should they not follow the new rules. The FAA confirmed on the 18th December that model aircraft’s name and home addresses will be publicly available.

In its current state, the system does not release names and addresses. They have expressed that the system will be modified so that the public can search registration numbers, ultimately revealing the name and address of the a particular drone.

With the ability to search a registration number and find out their details, from their response to Forbes writer John Goglia, you would not be able to search by name or address so unless you have the drone’s number you are not going to be able to find someone’s details (or track a drone down based on the owner’s details).

Of course this revelation is slightly worrying for a lot of people, they are now able to have their details exposed by a legal requirement. It would be on par to getting people to reveal their identity for driving licenses or publicly revealing the owner of registered guns.

The Academy of Model Aeronautics advised its members that they are looking for legal and political ways to stop the registry or change the way it is being conducted, given that they are about to expose a majority of their members details to the public.