Private (Non commercial drones) and the POPI Act

[vagabond]

I am just curious about the implications of the POPI Act on recreational drones overflying a private residence. I know that aircraft also overfly private properties but usually not as low and not recording or transmitting video whilst doing so. It is just a general question and not related to a specific incident or operator.

[heisan]

I am just curious about the implications of the POPI Act on recreational drones overflying a private residence. I know that aircraft also overfly private properties but usually not as low and not recording or transmitting video whilst doing so. It is just a general question and not related to a specific incident or operator.

I am not sure the POPI Act will apply to this in any way?

[Shepherd]

POPIA is not the act to reference with your question, it wont offer any protection at all.

Copyright laws would the right direction to lean towards.

I film for a living, release forms are the most important thing to a production. It doesnt matter who owns the camera or who hired you to operate it. You sign a release form before you even set foot on a project otherwise you could claim rights to that footage.

The same would go if someone filmed your backyard and next minute it ends up on the net or in a TV show... If you did not sign a release for that then bobs your uncle...

[snoopy]

These privacy infringements from private drone flyers happen a lot, maybe your question should just be rephrased.

But one day soon one of these chaps is going to be taken to the cleaners - Many dont understand the present regulations at all. And often their drones are bought overseas and then brought in as personal luggage.

Most residential areas would make it impossible to legally fly a drone for recreational video recording of your house or your neighbours house. If you apply the regulations.

Had a incident like this recently, and not the first time either - the area is close to a NKP (2km) and within 7km of an airfield. The owner of the drone is oblivious to the regulations in SA, just has some vague understanding of it. Bought the camera drone overseas. He flew the drone from the side of a public road, and beyond the scope of his own private property (none of which is further than 50m away from a public road)...to get "better views" he overflew and hovered the drone over other property without permission of the owners. To top it all, the drone flyer's own property is in a FAP and he flew the camera drone in a FAP, -prohibited airspace from ground level to 1500GND.

Purpose of the drone flight? Was to collect camera sensor footage of property for his "own use". And the chap is not a photographer - so has no clue about release forms....and typically these types don't.

Consider the rules applicable to security cameras as well in SA, and where they may point and where they may not point on any property.

The Protection of Personal Information Act (POPI Act) protects an individual from the unlawful processing of their personal information.

Any camera sensor on a DJI for example, collecting data - is included under the term "Collection" in the definition of “processing” in the POPI Act so SACAA drone regulations must take the provisions of POPI Act into account.

In the final analysis any private property owner has the reasonable expectation of their privacy on their own private property. The courts will uphold that.

[Shepherd]

These privacy infringements from private drone flyers happen a lot, maybe your question should just be rephrased.

But one day soon one of these chaps is going to be taken to the cleaners - Many dont understand the present regulations at all. And often their drones are bought overseas and then brought in as personal luggage.

Most residential areas would make it impossible to legally fly a drone for recreational video recording of your house or your neighbours house. If you apply the regulations.

Had a incident like this recently, and not the first time either - the area is close to a NKP (2km) and within 7km of an airfield. The owner of the drone is oblivious to the regulations in SA, just has some vague understanding of it. Bought the camera drone overseas. He flew the drone from the side of a public road, and beyond the scope of his own private property (none of which is further than 50m away from a public road)...to get "better views" he overflew and hovered the drone over other property without permission of the owners. To top it all, the drone flyer's own property is in a FAP and he flew the camera drone in a FAP, -prohibited airspace from ground level to 1500GND.

Purpose of the drone flight? Was to collect camera sensor footage of property for his "own use". And the chap is not a photographer - so has no clue about release forms....and typically these types don't.

Consider the rules applicable to security cameras as well in SA, and where they may point and where they may not point on any property.

The Protection of Personal Information Act (POPI Act) protects an individual from the unlawful processing of their personal information.

Any camera sensor on a DJI for example, collecting data - is included under the term "Collection" in the definition of “processing” in the POPI Act so SACAA drone regulations must take the provisions of POPI Act into account.

In the final analysis any private property owner has the reasonable expectation of their privacy on their own private property. The courts will uphold that.

While I agree with many things you say here, and completely about the application of the drone regulations for both Hobbyist and Professionals with regards to flying over private property, 50m from public roads, aerodromes, FAP, etc etc...

However POPI still would have no application here at all, in any of the examples. Unless you used your lawnmower and cut your credit card number, bank account details, or your ID number and they took a photo of that... Otherwise there is nothing POPI is going to do for you in terms of prosecuting someone. POPI also does not say you cannot collect personal information, it gives guidelines of how you can collect it, what you use it for and how you MUST protect that information from any security risks of your systems, for both physical and cyber. It also covers what should be done should that information be compromised in anyway.

If you were to try and prosecute the person, then you would use the drone and other aviation regulations to nail them. You could then strap on some copyright laws which would apply with some regards as well, which would drive the nail home...

Furthermore the question about taking photos of someone or those CCTV footage you mentioned, you need to be scratching into the copyright laws of SA for this one.

There are many scenarios where its perfectly fine for someone to take your photo based on where they are standing or you are standing (even if you are on your own property...) and still be able to use it without your consent specifically.

I say your consent specifically because many "public" spaces around SA are actually privately owned. For example most of the Gateway area around Umhlanga is within the the Hullets owned land which is managed by The Ridge Management. If I want to do a shoot, all I need to do is go through the process, get the permission slip approved and you are away doing my shoot within the "public" spaces. If I wanted to shoot inside Gateway then its their permission I needed and nothing to do with The Ridge Management, unless I am again anywhere outside of Gateway and not on its immediate property. I would need boths approval if I am outside of Gateway taking photos and use any of the likeliness of Gateway in my shot. I would also need the approval of all the outside branded shops, for example Krispy Kreme, Ocean Basket, etc etc, if you were to use any of their Trademarked branding within the shot.

Again usually when professional crews are filming/photographing in a public space like a mall or a restaurant the production crew would have a big board out with a disclaimer that they are filming/photographing and if you do not want to be in the background please use an alternative route or sit somewhere else (not said as directly as this, but you get the point).

All that being said, if you really did not want to be seen in the photo or video its as simple as going up to person and saying that you would please not like to be on that photo/video so please dont use me.
You will meet the ego person that will be rude about it and tell you they have disclaimers out or permission to shoot here. But for the most part the person shooting or director would far rather move on and do another take without the person versus having a red faced person looking angry in the background or making a scene.

I am not a lawyer but I am a videographer and photographer and do run into these often. And in a past life I was a solutions architect of datacenter infrastructure specialising in servers, storage and studying some cyber security stuff before I left for something I was more passionate about.
Craig Fouche did a nice post about it on his website and is from the perspective of a "street photographer," link is here https://www.craigfouche.co.za/the-law-a ... th-africa/

On a side note... If you knew how much more harmful all those CCTV cameras COULD be to your personal information and overall freedom, you would never leave the safety of your interior home walls and strip out all your own security cameras...
And if you have ever been shopping and stopped to look at the TV with the promos playing on it... Odds are a camera was watching the movements of your face and reading its emotional sentiments and a whole boatload of other information about you, everything just shy of your actual name and ID number.

[snoopy]

Some legal opinion would actually disagree with you regarding "hobby camera drones" ( if you like) and the POPI Act - I understand where you are coming from as a photographer - however there is far more to this than what photographers typically deal with.

A good input anyway.

Disregarding privacy rights will get you in trouble - you know that as a photographer as well, if you know about release forms.

The original question is a valid one that even SACAA has to consider.