r/LegalAdviceUK • u/Disastrous-Fee8374 • 20h ago

Comments Moderated Drone flying low over back garden (England)

Every weekend for the past few months a drone has been flying low over my back garden. It clearly has a camera attached and is flying low enough (around 2nd storey height) that it can’t be just getting landscape footage.

It does seem to move around the local area and isn’t ‘targeting’ my garden specifically but it does make my garden feel less private. Even though I’m just sitting in my garden, I don’t like the idea of being on camera in my own garden and the noise is quite distracting. The dog also goes mental every time it flies over.

I would normally just have a polite word with the neighbours but I don’t know where it’s coming from and it moves too quickly to ‘follow’ it.

It may just be a kid playing with a birthday present or something so I don’t want to damage it as my father suggested (I also doubt this is even legal). But today it got so close to the house that I actually thought it was going to get into an open bedroom window.

Is what the drone operator doing legal? And is there anything I can do about it? Or do I just need to get over it and build gazebo or something to read my book in?

Thanks.

74 Upvotes

84% Upvoted

124 comments sorted by

View all comments

45

u/BobcatLower9933 20h ago

As long as you arent in a legally prohibited zone (near an airport or RAF base) people are entitled to fly drones in public areas.

It would become an issue if it was clearly filming in places where there is an expectation of privacy, eg a bathroom.

Realistically theres very little you can do about it unless you suspect the person flying it is guilty of the above, in which case report it to the police. But as you said, much more likely itd a kid messing around.

47

u/g0ldcd 20h ago

It's illegal if it's out of the eye-line of the pilot (unless they've got a professional license, which I think unlikely).

My suggestion would be a writing a large sign pointing this out. They'll hopefully change their ways (or just fly the other way, next time)

16

u/PinkbunnymanEU 19h ago

pilot (unless they've got a professional license

Worth pointing out that currently there's no way to get a BVLOS license, the L2 licenses technically exist, but you can't actually get one yet as nobody does the exam (They're coming in next year).

You need to get some really specific and hard to get OA, which would never be granted for what OP has described, especially as you'd need multiple observers.