Updating the laws around drones is happening more quickly than most of us might like but is actually a lot slower than one would expect given how many complications irresponsible drone pilots have caused for people over the past couple of years.
Among the many proposals for reigning in this sort of behavior – pilot licensing, registration schemes, software and anti-drone technology – is something called Remote ID which is, in its most basic form, little more than the equivalent of a “digital license plate” according to DPReview.
It’s seen as among the simplest, quickest ways to implement a robust system of drone identification and it is why so many people in the United States are urging the Federal Aviation Administration to move forward with finalizing its rules and regulations regarding that.
The FAA’s Jay Merkle who is heading up the agency’s efforts to integrate drones into the wider airscape of the FAA’s jurisdiction, said of the regulations, “We realize that there’s no schedule I can give you or anyone else can give you that will be quick enough to get to remote ID, from a regulatory standpoint…So we think working with industry to get early adoption of [technical] standards and voluntary compliance is a good way to start enabling and unlocking' flights over people and beyond line of sight.”
As DPReview points out, the rules for Remote ID have taken a lot longer than most people expected and the formalization committee was supposed to begin its work on May 1 this year but instead pushed that back to July 21.
The reasons Merkle cited for that delay is the sheer complexity of the task ahead of the FAA and the need to probably get it right the first time around.
Are you a drone pilot? What do you think of the FAA’s proposed Remote ID plans? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.
