I live next to our private community swim club (I am a member). Got my P3 before the swim season this year and not wanting to be "creepy" I had never flown over the pool while it was open with people. Tonight my son was playing water basketball so I flew over videoing him and his friends. As you can see they enjoyed the attention, other kids were waving, and at least one adult was taking a video of me. Of course I got a voicemail from the pool manager (she wasn't there) after the lifeguards freaked out and called her. I took off from my property, was in constant line of sight, etc.
Video is here:
Now I get all of the potential privacy issues with people at a pool getting recorded BUT in this case the focus / purpose of the video was me making a home movie of my son playing basketball with his friends. It's quite common now a days for parents (even at this pool) to take videos of their kids since everyone has a "camcorder" on their cell phone. What is different with me doing the same thing with my "flying camera"? Actually since its noisy and conspicuous I would argue this is more open than a cell phone because people _know_ they are in the shot.
Anyway, I am playing phone tag with this pool manager and of course I will promise not to fly over again if they don't want me to. Where actually is the line these days? Like I said I can't see any difference here than me standing next to the pool with my iPhone recording the same video. I guess there could be be a safety concern if the P3 crashed on someone in the pool but then again I was filming a bunch of people throwing a basketball around... Again I will respect their wishes but my point here is around the privacy issue. Everyone is recording each other with cell phones & taking pictures anyway, if done in a similar context why is a drone any different?
DOM
Video is here:
Now I get all of the potential privacy issues with people at a pool getting recorded BUT in this case the focus / purpose of the video was me making a home movie of my son playing basketball with his friends. It's quite common now a days for parents (even at this pool) to take videos of their kids since everyone has a "camcorder" on their cell phone. What is different with me doing the same thing with my "flying camera"? Actually since its noisy and conspicuous I would argue this is more open than a cell phone because people _know_ they are in the shot.
Anyway, I am playing phone tag with this pool manager and of course I will promise not to fly over again if they don't want me to. Where actually is the line these days? Like I said I can't see any difference here than me standing next to the pool with my iPhone recording the same video. I guess there could be be a safety concern if the P3 crashed on someone in the pool but then again I was filming a bunch of people throwing a basketball around... Again I will respect their wishes but my point here is around the privacy issue. Everyone is recording each other with cell phones & taking pictures anyway, if done in a similar context why is a drone any different?
DOM