No they can’t. At least not easily at all. It takes a lot of specialized tools and time to sort out a drone signal from all the other background noise. They use some radio, but also cellular, wifi or bluetooth. The hundreds of signals in the immediate area of any sensors and having to sift through all of them is crazy, much less from 2-3 positions to get an accurate location of the transmitter. I live in a suburban area, and sitting in my living room I have 15 wifi signals and 7 BT. Now imagine a more urban setting in crowds all with phones running cellular, wifi, bluetooth, car systems, radio keyfobs, home and business wifi, etc.
It’s far easier to GPS jam the drone and have it drop down in lost mode, then see if you can trace ownership via serial number. Either way, seizing the drone stops the filming and the owner is out the cost of the hardware.
E: I was partly wrong. They can find out who owns a drone if they registered it with the FAA - however there are only a million registered drones and reportedly millions that are not. So don’t use a registered drone.
Newer drones are literally required by law to broadcast their remote ID, which also contains location identification. Yes, they can track you very easily.
Sure, there are cheap drones that don’t abide by these requirements, and a DIY system can get around it, but the point stands that basically any “name brand” non-toy drone sold in the US is going to tell the anyone interested your location the moment you turn the transmitter on.
That said, they cannot physically locate you via the signal, which is the point I assumed you meant when you said “track”.
Himes said that “millions” of unregistered drones were operating across the US, in addition to 800,000 registered drones that weigh more than half a pound.
So if you register, they can ID you via the broadcast registration. Seems like a lot of people aren’t too keen on registration. If you don’t register, again…they’ll need to do some legal digging and see if they can use that ID to identify the buyer, if the seller keeps that info associated.
What’s stopping home drone operators treating that law with the same contempt ICE treats laws?
The fact that they can track your controller and hunt you down.
No they can’t. At least not easily at all. It takes a lot of specialized tools and time to sort out a drone signal from all the other background noise. They use some radio, but also cellular, wifi or bluetooth. The hundreds of signals in the immediate area of any sensors and having to sift through all of them is crazy, much less from 2-3 positions to get an accurate location of the transmitter. I live in a suburban area, and sitting in my living room I have 15 wifi signals and 7 BT. Now imagine a more urban setting in crowds all with phones running cellular, wifi, bluetooth, car systems, radio keyfobs, home and business wifi, etc.
It’s far easier to GPS jam the drone and have it drop down in lost mode, then see if you can trace ownership via serial number. Either way, seizing the drone stops the filming and the owner is out the cost of the hardware.
E: I was partly wrong. They can find out who owns a drone if they registered it with the FAA - however there are only a million registered drones and reportedly millions that are not. So don’t use a registered drone.
Newer drones are literally required by law to broadcast their remote ID, which also contains location identification. Yes, they can track you very easily.
https://www.faa.gov/uas/getting_started/remote_id
Sure, there are cheap drones that don’t abide by these requirements, and a DIY system can get around it, but the point stands that basically any “name brand” non-toy drone sold in the US is going to tell the anyone interested your location the moment you turn the transmitter on.
TIL they mandate registration now. Thanks.
That said, they cannot physically locate you via the signal, which is the point I assumed you meant when you said “track”.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4g2q1e238lo
So if you register, they can ID you via the broadcast registration. Seems like a lot of people aren’t too keen on registration. If you don’t register, again…they’ll need to do some legal digging and see if they can use that ID to identify the buyer, if the seller keeps that info associated.