Status of 2014 Domestic Drone Legislation in the States

Updated 4/24/14

Since last year, surveillance drones have been the subject of fierce debate both among legislators and the public, giving rise to an impressive amount of legislation—proposed and enacted—to protect individuals’ privacy.

Working closely with our lobbyists in state capitols around the country, we’ve been tracking drone legislative activity and working hard to make sure privacy-protective bills become law. The chart below shows the current status of the 2014 state legislation as we understand it. It also includes the bills that became law in 2013. We will keep the below chart up-to-date as we receive new information.

Like last year, almost all of the bills we’re seeing require law enforcement to get a probable cause warrant before using a drone in an investigation. This year, though, much of the proposed legislation is more complex, taking into account the more challenging issues like what to do with information that is collected incidentally to lawful drone use, how long law enforcement can hang on to drone-collected data, and how to handle government access to information collected by third-party drones. This may be one reason that drones legislation is moving more slowly this year.

If you are interested in the full complement of 2013 legislative activity, you can find that information here. We have also posted analyses of the first drone bills to become law and the first drones bills introduced, and we released a report on drones available here.

Totals:
2014 legislation introduced in 36 states, active in 22 states, and enacted in 3 states.
Overall (2013-2014): laws enacted in 12 states.