A Bay Area man lost his home insurance after the carrier took aerial photos of the "clutter" in his yard.

Complete speculation on my part, but privacy laws? My understanding is that in the US, broadly speaking, you have a right to privacy where it would be reasonably expected, which I’ve usually heard defined as places you can’t easily see from the sidewalk. If my understanding is true, then this would be an invasion of privacy just like some creep standing on a ladder peeping on people in their high fenced backyards, and there are generally laws against such behavior.

The article touches on that part actually right at the end:

As for legality of taking drone pictures over a house? California state law only forbids that if you’re specifically doing so as a sort of peeping tom.

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Would’ve been nice if they explained it a bit more.

For example, California has some civil laws covering such things due to paparazzi using technology, but the key with those is the intent to capture people’s activities: https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?sectionNum=1708.8.&lawCode=CIV

Oh nice, that’s what I get for not reading it

Don’t be like reddit, read the articles before commenting my dude. I know it’s a difficult habit to break, but you’re less likely to end up looking like a fool and you get to poke fun at the people who obviously aren’t reading the articles either!

Yeah, I think it’s a proximity thing. The risk of a drone crashing over a yard is part of that factor I think, which makes sense. Imagine a big drone crashing on some kid’s head 😬

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