Drone Tax

[Image: An otherwise unrelated image of the unmanned Draganflyer X8 system, courtesy of Draganfly].

A post on sUAS News—a blog tracking the "small unmanned aviation system industry"—we read about the possibility of drone aircraft being used to enforce residential property tax.

Citing a recent court ruling in Arkansas that "has approved the use of aerial imagery to collect data on property sizes," and making reference to the already-controversial state deployment of aerial surveillance tools, sUAS suggests that drones could someday be used to manage a near-realtime catalog of local property expansions, transfers, and other tax-relevant land alterations.

Whether enforcing local building codes—keeping an eye, for instance, on illegally built structures such as the so-called Achill Henge in Ireland—or reconciling on-the-ground property lines with their administrative representations back in the city land archives, how soon will drones become a state tool for regional landscape management?

[Images: Might semi-autonomous systems such as this someday track residential property lines? Images courtesy of Draganfly].

"Imagine your local planning officer having access to your back garden at a moment's notice!" sUAS writes with alarm. "With the pullback from Iraq and other spots under way, this scenario is much easier to imagine. Perhaps it's already happening."

(Thanks to Ruth Lyons for the Achill Henge link).

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Blogger Andy Bradford said...

I'm a Geographic Information Systems technician for a small municipality south of Los Angeles, and I can see plenty of uses for small drones like this, from checking the heat output of buildings (to detect marijuana growing operations) to updating aerial photographs of an active (and moving) landslide area.

January 03, 2012 4:04 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

T. A. Voss, WY

Ever heard of Orwell's "1984?" Well, he missed the mark a little but when some beady eyed little Government employee figures out just how invasive thsese drones can be we will all be shooting at them.

I call for the immediate passage of law that forbids any government - state, local or federal from owning flying drones to use against its own people for any reason. PLUS, law to take down all the supposed "security" cameras that Homeland has put up every where and REPEAL the "Patriot" Act to begin the process of returning America to the people.

NOW -

T. A. Voss

January 06, 2012 10:37 AM  

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