On Thursday, the government at last announced its much-awaited new liberalized drone rules, marking the transitioning for an industry that has for since a long time ago struggled under unclear, and somewhat unimplementable regulatory norms.

And while virtual celebrations have broken out since the announcement of the new rules which likewise repealed norms that were implemented only some months prior—and were widely considered to be excessively stringent and restrictive—there is something that the rules seem to have given the fly by to: ensuring that drones don’t end up abusing Indians’ fundamental right to security.

Security killed

Here are some realities: The rules nowhere mention the word security even once. There is zero mention of seeking consent from people before a drone is flown over them. There are likewise no prescribed mechanisms for a person to seek recourse or damages.

While the rules do say that drone operations ought to be done keeping as a main priority the safety of people, they neglect to delineate how this is to be ensured.

Conversely, the European Union has clearly set down principles on secure drone operations. The European Safety Agency Regulation mandates that a drone operator carries out an information protection sway assessment in line with the General Data Protection Regulation before operations.

“Yes, the drone rules are extremely frustrating in that aspect wherein they have not accounted for how police and/or intelligence agencies might use them to surveil populaces,” Anushka Jain, associate counsel (surveillance and transparency) at the Delhi-based advanced rights bunch Internet Freedom Foundation, told Entrackr.

Queries sent to the Civil Aviation Ministry on Thursday morning didn’t elicit a response at the time of distribution.

It is significant that enough security protections be offered to citizens against drones essentially because while noticeable all around, they have the capacity to capture sensitive personal information on people.

Absence of procedural safeguards and a problematic information protection regime

There have been several instances of law enforcement agencies deploying drones without seeking the required authorisations from the Ministry of Civil Aviation and the airline regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation.

In recent times, drones have been flown over several enemy of government protests. And when law enforcement agencies are allowed to use drones uninhibitedly, it means that there is neither freely available data about the manner or purpose for which these agencies use drones, nor is there any transparency around the types of drones they deploy.

When that is clubbed with the wide-going exemptions afforded to government agencies in India’s imminent information protection law, things get really dinky.

“Take a gander at this in the larger context of the ecosystem being constructed. The PDP Bill provides wide exemptions to government agencies and needs genuinely necessary surveillance reform,” said Jain.

A jolt for India’s drone ecosystem

At the same time, the rules are expected to give India’s burgeoning drone industry a significant impetus. Gone are the piles of paperwork required under the old norms as the rules introduce self-certification and non-intrusive observing. The number of structures has gone down from 25 to five.

The rules now cover drones that weigh as much as 500 kilograms as opposed to 300 kilograms. This could cover drone taxis too.

Another significant arrangement is that the rules permit the business time to come to terms with the ‘No permission – no takeoff’ (NPNT) convention. A time period of a half year will be given to drone makers to implement the NPNT convention in their drones alongside real-time tracking and geo-fencing capabilities.

NPNT has been a difficult architecture to implement for drone makers and it has been a long-standing demand of the business to permit some relaxations keeping that in mind.

Tech industry body Nasscom welcomed the rules, and said, “this won’t just usher new development opportunities yet will likewise enable Startups and SMEs to create innovative use cases and applications in different sectors like E-Commerce, Mining, Healthcare, Emergency response, coordinations among others”.

DGCA has additionally ceded its power over drone imports and that has now been given to the Directorate General of Foreign Trade.

They likewise stipulate that drones present in India at the very latest November 30, 2021 will be given a unique identification number through the Digital Sky stage and will be considered DGCA-approved.

A drone advancement gathering will likewise be established to facilitate a business-friendly regulatory regime.

“The establishment of the Unmanned Aircraft Systems Promotion Council which includes industry and academia showcases that the government recognizes drone technology as a technology of public importance,” said the business body Drone Federation of India.

Surveillance ≠ Security

The new rules certainly seem to be as close as possible perhaps get to the list of things to get of drone operators. Coming on the same day as the news that Delhi is the world’s number. 1 city in terms of surveillance cameras per kilometer, care needs to be taken on the I