GeoFence Software Grounds Drones Around President

Drones are a no-go when Trump is around!

Even as drone technology evolves at lightning pace, the regulations surrounding drones are still being resolved. Amazon’s highly anticipated drone delivery system was initially stalled almost out of the gate due to new restrictions on “line of sight” operation, distances payloads can be carried, and more. Other cases involving invasion of privacy and the laws surrounding shooting down drones that fly to close to your property (seriously, it went to court) are still being expected to set the legal precedents for this type of newfangled gadget.

Interestingly, the higher the price of the drone, the more restrictions it carries, as one operator discovered when the no-fly zone for his drone was tripled due to Trump’s most recent visit to Mar-a-Lago. The operator was fifteen miles away and therefore well outside the previously established ten-mile limit, but the pre-installed grounding software in his drone informed him that the radius had been expanded to thirty miles due to Trump being in the region.

Drones themselves have grown a very polarized fan-vs-critic base. As a hot new innovation, they’re gaining popularity with everyone from school children to businesses. But on the opposite end are those who see them as nothing more than a tool to invade privacy. In fact, a company launched in 2015 that promised the public they could set up geofences around their private property to keep drones away. The plan was to get the drone manufacturers on board and automatically block the locations that had signed up. The drone developers had no incentive to agree to this, though, and despite tens of thousands of citizens signing up to be left alone, the no-fly zone company went under.

While cheaper drones have a greater consumer base but less distance and carrying capability, they also don’t come with geofencing software to ground them. The annoying mosquito buzz drones can’t operate too far from the controller, and therefore don’t need to be auto-dumped in the way that a high end drone with payload capacity do. Tech hobbyists might want to consider those blocking ramifications before making an investment, and leave the high end devices for those who won’t be inconvenienced by a sudden no-fly zone.