Agency sets date for drone discussions

A Commerce Department agency has set a date for its first discussion of how to promote accountability in the operation of drones.

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) said that it would hold its first stakeholder meeting on the issue on August 3.

{mosads}“We are looking forward to applying our experiences promoting multistakeholder policymaking in the Internet governance and privacy arenas to this effort to craft best practices for privacy, transparency, and accountability regarding [unmanned aircraft systems],” wrote Angela Simpson, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Communications and Information.

“As we have in other multistakeholder forums, NTIA will act as a neutral convener, with stakeholders driving the process and determining the content of the best practices.”

Simpson said that the agency planned to involve “wide range of stakeholders, including industry, civil society and academia.”

In February, the White House asked the NTIA to “develop a framework regarding privacy, accountability, and transparency for commercial and private UAS use.”

The administration has used the NTIA in the past to develop policies through ongoing discussions between industry and advocates.

The agency used a multistakeholder process to develop a draft code of conduct for mobile application developers.

The approach has been less successful in other cases. This year, a group of top privacy advocates left talks over how to create a code of conduct for facial recognition technology.

It’s the latest sign that the federal government is looking to address the regulatory questions raised by the increased use of drones for a variety of purposes.