The
Article 29 Working Party has published an
Opinion (01/2015) about the data protection and privacy issues
in relation to the utilisation of drones.
The Working Party acknowledges the social and economic benefits of
drones within the aviation market and the opportunities that could
develop for law enforcement agencies, but emphasises that risks and
threats to individuals' privacy will also increase through a
large-scale deployment of drone and sensor technology.
While the commercial use of drones would be subject to the 28
members states' national data protection laws, generally at the
EU level there is no specific data protection legislation for
personal or governmental use of drones. Drones also present several
unique challenges because of the manner in which personal data can
be processed; for instance, through images, sound, geolocation, and
the potential to interconnect multiple drones, as well as the
potential for them to be used to gather information from
