Delaware GOP wants to limit the use of data gathered by drones. Here’s what a local drone startup founder thinks

State Rep. Steve Smyk (R-Milton-Lewes) delivered Delaware GOP’s weekly message late last week via YouTube. In the video (which, we might add, could have used a little less zoom), the state lawmaker called for tighter restrictions on UAV data collection.
Smyk’s logic: to protect the civil liberties of Delawareans.

Read the full text of the address
“The data collected by this technology raises still more issues regarding its retention and appropriate uses, and under what conditions it could be accessed under the Freedom of Information Act,” said Smyk.
How would limitations on UAV data collection affect drone startups like GooseView Technologies? When we spoke with him last month, founder Michael Mogavero defended his business model.
“We already have laws on the books in every state about privacy invasion. We already have that. I don’t think we need special laws for that, I think we need regulation that makes sense because we can all agree nobody should have to have some person taking liberty away from somebody else,” said Mogavero, noting the applications for this type of data collection — municipal, infrastructure inspection, patrolling facilities, land mapping, surveying, agricultural crop monitoring, etc.
“None of the applications I’m talking about have individuals flying drones over individual’s houses,” he said. “These are industrial facilities and public areas [we’re servicing]. We have to be away from people and cars. People running the facility know we’re there.”