It has been recently that they are on the market, but the small aircraft are already a mass phenomenon: Mini-UAVs, often controlled with a Smartphone and equipped with tiny cameras, spread rapidly among users. They provide the perfect holiday paradise with beach and sea, they are used as a persecutor camera during a wild bike tour through the mountains, but also for business purposes. For example, when selling a property, anyone who can show his house from all sides may have better sales opportunities.
From aerial photography to satellite remote sensing, there are many methods of acquiring images of the Earth. Conventional aerial photography allows very precise images (much less than one meter) to be obtained, but the shooting remains a heavy operation and often outside the budgetary means of research programs.
The development of this method of acquisition is also part of the methodological innovation on geographic information systems (GIS): it is accompanied by the development of methods and software for the recovery, mosaic-ing, and integrated management of image data in a GIS. We present in this article some of the ethics of Singapore Aerial Videography.
Drones and Copter are not forbidden
First of all, it is not fundamentally forbidden to control a mini-drone- Neither in the city nor in the country, neither in public nor private. As long as it is not about Singapore Aerial Videography, the same rules apply as for model aircraft or the well-known small toy helicopters. However, there are some limitations.
Airports and visibility
Outside of the controlled airspace near airports, the drone may ascend up to 100 meters. Further up, it is subject to authorization, since air traffic can be disturbed.
Flight drones above the house
It becomes tricky if a house owner controls over occupied area and makes film recordings. For then, the matter quickly becomes a case for the complicated neighborhood law.
Photos and videos from the air
The hysteria around the introduction of Google Street View a few years ago should be a warning to any drone pilots. Anyone who blinks over the hedges here must expect a lot of trouble.
And what applies to Google also applies to air photographs. If you move the flying camera over the fence to neighbor's site, you should ask permission first, especially if you want to publish the recordings later.
In general, drones can keep to the rule: Everything that can be seen with the naked eye and from a normal perspective can be photographed.
Drones as sales help
If you want to sell your property, you can take as many pictures of the airspace as you want. This applies to single-family houses anyway, but also for multi-family houses. If the authorities allowed on the spot, the owner could fly over the house and take pictures of the backyard. Even if the windows of rented apartments can be seen, there is hardly anything against a publication and use for the sale.
Residents could possibly contradict "if one can clearly see for example details of a housing facility through the window."
