Experts to Explore Public Opinion, Policies of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Leading experts will discuss safety, privacy and public opinion issues concerning the use of unmanned aircraft in U.S. communities at a policy forum at the National Press Club, Tuesday, May 8.

Congress has directed the Federal Aviation Administration to draft rules for unmanned aerial vehicle flights over U.S. airspace by 2015.

The domestic use of robotic or remotely piloted aircraft is expected to become an $85 billion business within a few years, as this technology becomes widely available for commercial application within the United States.

“This technology offers many public safety benefits and commercial opportunities, but it also raises concerns about personal privacy, safety, and liability,” said Joe Eyerman, Ph.D., director of the Center for Security, Defense, and Safety at RTI International and co-director of the Institute for Homeland Security Solutions.

The policy forum, titled “Robotic and Remotely Piloted Aircraft Inside the United States: Applications, Safety, Perceptions and Privacy Concerns,” will be held from 8:30 a.m. – 10:00 a.m. and is being hosted by RTI.

The panel includes Peter Singer, Ph.D., director of the Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence, Brookings Institution; Eyerman; Kenneth Mortensen, former associate deputy attorney general and chief privacy and civil liberties officer, U.S. Department of Justice; and Darryl Jenkins, airline analyst, Aviation Consulting Group.

Tim Gabel, executive vice president of Social, Statistical and Environmental Sciences at RTI, will welcome the program and U.S. Representative Richard Hanna, a member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and Unmanned Systems Caucus, will give opening remarks.

David Schanzer, associate professor of public policy at Duke University and co-director at the Institute for Homeland Security Solutions, will moderate the panel.

“The challenge for policy makers is to establish a legal framework for the use of unmanned aerial vehicles that takes full advantage of their potential, while maintaining the level of personal privacy that Americans expect in their daily lives,” Schanzer said. “This forum will explore what this legal framework might look like.”

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