Create a Drone ‘No Fly Zone’ over Your House?

There's no question that drones are here to stay and we will likely soon see uses for these remotely controlled aerial vehicles that we can't even imagine. But a growing number of citizens are concerned about their privacy as an increasing number of camera-clad buzzers fly near their homes. As people are looking for solutions, a bill in Oklahoma that would allow property owners to shoot down drones over their properties was recently passed by the Oklahoma Senate Judiciary Committee.

Whether the shoot-down bill will become law remains to be seen. But there is a new company that appears to have a better solution to the drone privacy problem. "I wanted to figure out a way to be part of the solution to that issue," said Ben Marcus, the founder and CEO of NoFlyZone.org. "That is why I created NoFlyZone.org. It basically gives people the ability to create a no fly zone over their house."

While the company won't be able to protect against all little buzzers, it will prevent UAVs from blackening the skies above their homes.

"We've got a consortium of companies that have taken a leadership position on privacy issues that have agreed to comply voluntarily with these requests for privacy," Marcus says. "So they set up geo-fenced areas around these private properties just as there are geo fences around the White House or airports and so forth."

Launch partners include Yuneec, EHANG, DroneDeploy, HEXO+, PixiePath and RCFlyMaps.

The geo fences work as invisible barriers within the software of sophisticated UAVs. All you need to do to create a no fly zone over your home is to enter your address into the NoFlyZone database. The service is free. Marcus said that, as UAV uses progress to delivery services and even medical services, users of NoFlyZone.org would be able to customize their profiles to allow for such flights over their homes.

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Pia Bergqvist joined FLYING in December 2010. A passionate aviator, Pia started flying in 1999 and quickly obtained her single- and multi-engine commercial, instrument and instructor ratings. After a decade of working in general aviation, Pia has accumulated almost 3,000 hours of flight time in nearly 40 different types of aircraft.

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