The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in Brennan v. Dickson (D.C. Cir. (July 29, 2022) __ F.4th __ [2022 U.S.App. LEXIS 20973], upheld the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) rule on drone identification.  Plaintiff Tyler Brennan, a drone user, and a drone equipment retail business owned by Brennan, RaceDayQuads LLC, challenged the FAA over its Remote Identification Rule of April 2021. This rule requires drone manufacturers to begin producing drones with remote ID.  The FAA rule requires “drones in flight to emit publically readable radio signals reflecting certain identifying information, including their serial number, location, and performance information.” The FAA has compared remote ID to a “digital license plate.”  The Court rejected the plaintiffs’ argument that the Remote ID rule amounted to “constant, warrantless governmental surveillance in violation of the Fourth Amendment.”  To the contrary, the Court noted that “(d)rones are coming. Lots of them. They are fun and useful. But their ability to pry, spy, crash, and drop things poses real risks. Free-for-all drone use threatens air traffic, people and things on the ground, and even national security.” The Court rejected the plaintiffs’ arguments that a remote ID requirement amounted to a privacy breach and unconstitutional surveillance, the Court determining that “drones are virtually always flown in public. Requiring a drone to show its location and that of its operator while the drone is aloft in the open air violates no reasonable expectation of privacy.”

A full copy of the decision can be found here