The potential for a dystopian society where everything that anyone does is monitored is often invoked as a potential future aided by the IoT. When we bundle things like drones (also known as SUAS) into the conversation, the concerns are validated. Drones with remarkably high-resolution cameras and a variety of other pervasive sensors all raise privacy concerns; therefore, it is clear there is much work to be done to ensure that drone operators are not sued because of a lack of clear guidance on what data can be collected and how, and what the treatment of the data needs to address.

To address these new surveillance methods, new legislation related to the collection of imagery and other data by these platforms may be needed to provide rules and penalties in instances where those rules are broken. For example, even if a drone is not directly flying over a private or otherwise controlled property, its camera may view at slant-range angles into private property due to its high vantage point and zoom capabilities. Laws may need to be established that require immediate or as-soon-as-practical geospatial scrubbing and filtering of raw imagery according to defined, private-property-aligned geofences. Pixel-based georeferencing of images is already in today's capabilities and is used in a variety of image post-processing functions related to drone-based photogrammetry, production of orthomosaics, three-dimensional models, and other geospatial products. Broad pixel-based georeferencing within video frames may not be far off. Such functionality will require consent-based rules to be established so that no drone operator can preserve or post imagery in public online forums containing any private property regions beyond a specific per-pixel resolution. Without such technical and policy controls, there is little other than strong penalties or lawsuits to prevent Peeping Toms from peering into backyards and posting their results on YouTube. Operators need specificity in rules so that companies can build compliance solutions.

New technologies that allow law-abiding collectors of information to respect the wishes of citizens who want their privacy protected are needed in our sensor-rich IoT.