back to article Ban drones taking snaps of homes, rages Google boss... That's HIS job, right?

Google supremo Eric Schmidt has demanded tough rules on civilians flying surveillance drones, branding the tech a threat to privacy. The executive chairman of the internet advertising giant that snaps photos of millions of front doors worldwide is upset that cheap camera-toting aircraft can be used by anyone from terrorists to …

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  1. Chris Miller

    Is this the same Eric Schmidt

    who said: "if you don’t have anything to hide, you have nothing to fear".

    Shurely shome mishtake?

    1. JDX Gold badge

      Re: Is this the same Eric Schmidt

      That's what I was going to post... however I agree with his comments in this case even though I think drones are incredibly awesome and I really want one. They are such an open opportunity for perving and so on - I shouldn't have to close my curtains if my window is not overlooked.

      I fear they may be banned before they properly take off (!) as a toy.

      1. Captain Scarlet Silver badge
        Devil

        Re: Is this the same Eric Schmidt

        His just annoyed that people who are fed up of GoogleCars are deliberatly spying on him in his own back garden.

        **Moves Drone with Camera nearer a Tree**

      2. xerocred

        utter bollocks

        why don't they ban something that's actually dangerous instead of toys you can buy in toysrus in preparation of a crime(?) that hasn't happened yet?

    2. Jim 59
      Flame

      Re: Is this the same Eric Schmidt

      Schmidt / Google needs a good old Thatcher-style hand-bagging. Obama should borrow Michelle's heaviest "purse" and let rip.

      Next in line - London Banks, the British Leyland of the 21st Century. The should be hand-bagged with all available speed.

      Sorry about the off-topic rant. But seriously, man.

    3. asdf

      Re: Is this the same Eric Schmidt

      >who said: "if you don’t have anything to hide, you have nothing to fear".

      Just another case of the person saying this always be on the positive side of information asymmetry. When the playing field gets evened out some is when the whining really begins.

    4. Fred Flintstone Gold badge

      I have a very easy solution..

      Just put a "Google Streetview" sticker on it before you let it hover over his house. Easy.

    5. Anonymous Coward
      Black Helicopters

      @Chris

      And who thought it would be neat to provide us with (pretty high res.) aerial / satellite photo's which could almost identify your wife or girlfriend lying on a beach bench in your own backyard in her bikini ?

      Has everyone already forgotten about Google Earth and how much trouble many individuals had to go through before Google finally allowed the public to apply for blurring of pictures on their Google Earth environment ?

      What I see here is the Pot calling the Kettle black, and also a shameless display of sheer arrogance.

    6. Mips
      Childcatcher

      Re: Is this the same Eric Schmidt

      Pot. Kettle. Black.

      Sound familiar?

  2. Frankee Llonnygog

    He's just upset that ...

    ... having spent so much money developing self-driving cars with a view to automating the street cam fleet, he's just realised that a competitor will be able to do it more easily, quickly, and cheaply with drones.

    1. JDX Gold badge

      Re: He's just upset that ...

      His cars can't go into your back garden.

      1. Wize

        Re: He's just upset that ...

        "His cars can't go into your back garden."

        Both Google and Bing have a photo of my garden already.

      2. Vimes

        Re: He's just upset that ... @JDX

        They don't need to. The cameras are already high enough to see over the fences...

        1. JDX Gold badge

          Re: He's just upset that ... @JDX

          Your camera ha to be pretty bloody high to see into my back garden over the roof of my house. Google sees nothing a lorry driver doesn't.

  3. SW10
    Holmes

    I can, therefore I should

    Google's approach has tended to be: "We can, so we should. We'll pick up the pieces later."

    Schmidt is assuming that everyone else will do the same - in other words, because we can buzz a neighbour's BBQ then we will.

    Truth is, must of us think before acting and don't believe we should just because we can.

    1. JDX Gold badge

      Re: I can, therefore I should

      You have a very naive view of humanity. You don't think a guy who gets a drone for 'honourable' (nerdy) purposes who realises a hot woman sunbathes naked in her private garden or showers with the curtain open in her un-overlooked bathroom, would abuse that? It's very easy to say people won't BUY drones to perve, and I agree (mostly). But that doesn't mean they won't use them for that...

      1. Wize

        Re: I can, therefore I should

        Nothing stopping them nailing a video camera to a long stick and viewing that way through a window.

        I think it would be cool to have one. Could inspect my roof/guttering as well as shooting some nice flypast views (away from houses).

        Though, because there will always be one pervert out there, its going to restrict the rest of us normal people.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: I can, therefore I should

          @ Wize ...

          Shhh. If you're not careful they'll ban sticks.

          1. Rugster
            Facepalm

            Re: I can, therefore I should

            @ Pete H

            Also, don't use rectangular sticks with rounded corners. The shit will really hit the fan then.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: I can, therefore I should

          It is indeed a handy way to get a stills shot from a better vantage point... over a tall wall... above some other obstruction.. something in distance isn't quite visible but a few more feet of elevation will help.. a better view for all sorts of reasons...

          Put camera on tripod, extend to max length.

          Keep tripod legs together, and use as a long 'stick'.

          Use wide angle. Press 5 or 10 second timer... hoist camera up high, it takes shot.

          Bonus points for having a tilt-n-twist screen you can angle downwards so you can roughly check the framing.

      2. Mark 65

        Re: I can, therefore I should

        @jdx: with your fit woman example where do you draw the line? If I could be upstairs in my house ogling her or hovering a drone above my property is that still allowed as long as I'm not taking photos or video? Is it only wrong if her property isn't naturally overlooked? Where's the line?

        As regards other comments about google cars only taking images of what is publicly viewable I believe that has been held to not be true in several jurisdictions due to the pole extending from the roof of the vehicle giving it greater than normal viewing height.

        1. JDX Gold badge

          @Mark 65

          "@jdx: with your fit woman example where do you draw the line? If I could be upstairs in my house ogling her or hovering a drone above my property is that still allowed"

          If you could see her from your house, she can expect to be observed and should shut her curtains.

          Hovering a drone high above your own land... well you would not be allowed to build a high viewing platform on your garden which allows you to overlook neighbours, as far as I understand it, so I'd say this falls into that category.

      3. SW10

        Re: I can, therefore I should

        You *can* do more things like that with the camera on your mobe already.

        Based on the logic of your post, should we assume you *do* do such things?

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The ironing is delicious

    I wonder if he was showing the Norks how to use google maps to pick suitable targets when he was over there!

  5. Gordon Pryra

    So few comments?

    Surely this kind of story is a gold mine for commentards?

    I think this is a case of glass houses and throwing stones. Im betting hes got a reporter doing exactly this and he doesn't like it.

    People do not get rich like him by playing by the same rules as the little people. After a while, the truly powerful people really do live in ivory towers and the really don't see the hypocrisy in their statements.

    Maybe if the reporter used paint to blur out the faces on the picture? After all, he kindly did the same to the picture of my mother falling out of her car outside her house, which was nice, she loved that being shown to millions.

    Or maybe the people taking snaps of his back garden could publish them all online and then give him an opt-out per image ? Seems fair tbh

    1. h4rm0ny

      Re: So few comments?

      I think this is a case of glass houses and throwing stones. Im betting hes got a reporter doing exactly this and he doesn't like it.

      Probably that. But aside from the downright offensiveness of Schmidt being the one to say this, he is correct in this case. I'll just be keeping a very close eye on whether his actions match his rhetoric.

      1. Richard 12 Silver badge

        Re: So few comments?

        No, he's utterly wrong.

        Taking photos that deliberately invade the privacy of another is already illegal in most jurisdictions.

        For example, one could stand on a hill with a really long lens to take pictures of somebody topless sunbathing in a private area - and it would be against the law.

        It would break exactly the same law to use any other technology to get that same photo.

        - Oddly, you'd get caught more easily if you used a drone - they are noisier and have less loiter time than a bloke with a monopod and 1m lens.

        Banning drone photography would be fundamentally stupid - it's the same as banning cameras because you might hold one up over a fence.

        It is the photo itself which could invade one's privacy, not the means used to take it.

        Apart from the "fun police" aspect, there are many business opportunities opened up by using them - the most obvious utilitarian example being safe roofing and gutter inspections.

        1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge
          Childcatcher

          Re: So few comments?

          "Banning drone photography would be fundamentally stupid - it's the same as banning cameras because you might hold one up over a fence."

          ...or even arresting people with cameras for being too tall? Oh...wait...

    2. cortland
      Black Helicopters

      Re: So few comments?

      Can we watch as the people in grass houses stow thrones?

  6. El Presidente
    Facepalm

    Monday morning

    And already my WTF meter has gone off the scale.

    1. TeeCee Gold badge
      Happy

      Re: Monday morning

      You need an intelligent WTF meter that can recalibrate automatically when the article is about Google.

  7. The Vociferous Time Waster
    FAIL

    @Gordon

    This is obvious commentbait so not worth inflating El Reg's comment stats over.

    1. b166er

      Re: @Gordon

      How ironic then, that you just did :)

  8. Ross K Silver badge
    WTF?

    You Wot?

    Mr. Pot Meet Mr. Kettle....

    1. xyz Silver badge

      Re: You Wot?

      Just what I was thinking...mind you I suppose if they were running Android and had a billboard on the side then that would be OK then...

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    he comes from silicon valley ... they have some strange ideas on privacy their ... e.g. seem to recall that in Cupertino you are only allowed to build single storey residential houses so that you can't look out of an upper floor window into your neihgbours "yard"

  10. Chairo

    Methinks the world can deal with this problem

    once it turns out to really be a problem.

    Up to then we should busy ourselves with more pressing items at hand - like Google's privacy policy, for example.

  11. Pete 2 Silver badge

    Celebrity self interest

    > cheap camera-toting aircraft can be used by anyone from terrorists to quarrelling neighbours:

    I think his major, probably only, reason for getting upset is that the paparazzi will start flying drones over his property and start invading his privacy. He obviously has no interest in anybody else's privacy, but when it comes "home" it's a different matter entirely.

    Though to be fair, it's only a short journey from loading a camera onto a drone and flying it over his heavily guarded and impenetrable walls, to loading a gun onto the same ...

    1. wowfood

      Re: Celebrity self interest

      It's probably more a case of

      'We had to do all of this shit which cost a lot of money to get around the 'you're invading peoples privacy' stuff, which went atop license fees to take those pics in the first place. And now you're letting tom dick and harry go around with cheap consumer drones doing all the things you said we couldn't do... And without having to pay a license fee for it!"

      Which to a degree I can go with. There's a difference between buying worldwide pics which infringe on privacy without the intention to do so, and deliverately flying a drone to your neighbours bathroom window that the leave open while they're in the shower.

    2. Wize

      Re: Celebrity self interest

      "Though to be fair, it's only a short journey from loading a camera onto a drone and flying it over his heavily guarded and impenetrable walls, to loading a gun onto the same ..."

      How much weight can these drones take? Remote controlled bank robbery anyone?

      1. JDX Gold badge

        Re: Celebrity self interest

        If someone flies a drone into your property, I wonder if you're allowed to shoot it down - maybe yanks will start buying shotguns rather than pistols.

        1. Stoneshop

          Re: Celebrity self interest

          If someone flies a drone into your property, I wonder if you're allowed to shoot it down

          "I'm into conceptual art, you know, nailing water kettles to a board, letting concrete flow down the stairs, that kind of stuff. Right now I'm experimenting with firing paintball pellets up into the air, and have them fall on this canvas. And I seem to have hit some helicopter-thingie that apparently was flying overhead."

  12. Badvok
    Meh

    I don't know what the law's like in the US but I think here in the UK we are already adequately covered with the trespass (you own airspace up to about 500ft above your own land) and invasion of privacy laws (reasonable expectation of privacy in a fenced/walled garden).

    1. JDX Gold badge

      That doesn't help if sale of drones is unregulated and millions of the things start being used in this illegal manner... how is PC Plod going to tell who is operating the damn thing when someone reports it keeps bothering them? Hell how's he going to tell who is controlling it if he happens to be there when the drone appears? Users could fly the thing to knock off the copper's helmet with impunity!!

      Though I want a drone, I can see blocking them at source is potentially the way this might go. Thought waiting for it to BE a problem first would be preferable in case it's very rare.

  13. Mystic Megabyte
    Stop

    Shares?

    He probably owns shares in all the drone manufacturers. Now all merkins will be rushing out to buy one before they're banned.

    Buy three assault rifles and get a free drone?

  14. Rampant Spaniel

    Isn't this already covered by law. It's illegal to take pictures of people on private property, in the air above would include this. It is also illegal to take pictures of people in public places where there is an expectation of privacy. The same goes for video. Buzzing a neighbours bbq with a camera equipped drone would contravene the law anyway right? I am not a lawyer, but as a photographer I do hope I understand this part of the law, at least for a couple of countries.

    There are some iffy areas such as taking pictures of people on the private property from a public place, but this is often covered by voyerism. Personally I'm not all that bothered, saves on clay pidgeons :-)

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    one rule for some!!!!

    Taking photos of front doors are fine, unless you live in a gated or private road.

  16. MrXavia
    Black Helicopters

    I have no problem with people flying drones in public areas or on their own property or with permission of the land owner..BUT if they fly over my property, expect to be prosecuted or to have your drone shot down by mine...

    I am pretty sure we have laws to stop this, I.E. while I can put up cameras on my property and record anything I damn well like, its my property and its my choice.

    BUT if you fly over my garden with a drone and spy on me in my garden, then your breaking laws, I have an expectation of privacy in my garden! and you should expect your drone to be taken down, I expect drones are as susceptible to water guns as cats & rabbits are! (now to start building my automated defences!)

    1. Don Jefe

      The law is only being broken if the aircraft is at less than 500ft altitude. If it is above that then you're out of luck.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Interesting to know, so if I want to spy on someone I must fly the drone higher than 500ft with a powerful telephoto lens!

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