Emilia Clarke was sitting on the sofa in her Venice, California, home when she heard an insectile buzzing. She glanced up and there it was: a drone, hovering outside her living room’s tall windows, its camera trained on the Mother of Dragons as she gave an interview.
“There’s a drone looking in my house!” a stunned Clarke exclaimed. “That’s really creepy.”
Once spotted, the drone shot off. About 20 minutes later, however, the whirring device crept back to gawk some more at her personal space. Clarke was exasperated and more than a little unnerved.
This happened in 2019 — four years after a California law passed banning drone operators from violating the airspace of private property. Illicit drone use has not only continued despite states passing strict laws but in recent years has proliferated, says Mike Fraietta, an FAA drone pilot and founder of security company Gargoyle Systems. Drone security systems are on the rise as companies and event producers look to secure their airspace. Professional, military-grade drone-detection systems — the kind used for sporting events, for instance — can cost about $200,000.
Drone misuse “has gotten dramatically worse,” Fraietta says. “There was legislation passed, but that doesn’t necessarily stop them. Especially with high rises in places like New York and Austin, people assume they’re so high up that nobody can see them, but drones can.”
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, for example, called the L.A. Police Department multiple times to report drone peepers in 2020. And drones continue to plague on-location film sets; Ryan Reynolds says he and the rest of the Deadpool & Wolverine cast had a “run for cover” plan in place if anybody spotted a drone while staging a spoiler-filled scene. And while a recent viral drone video showing Drake in a high-rise suite furiously shooing off a spy-copter was faked, it reinforced the prevalence of these buzzing breaches of privacy.
A viral video that appeared to show Drake shooing off a drone was faked, but the type of scenario it depicts has happened to other celebrities.
©champagnepapi/Instagram
Drones are not just being employed by lurkers and paparazzi to spy on stars. They are reportedly also being used by criminals to case targets and can serve as lookouts when burglaries are underway. “We’re seeing robberies happen every day with the assistance of drones,” Fraietta says.
The L.A. County Sheriff’s Department said in November that drones were being used in a string of burglaries in Stevenson Ranch. Around the same time, the Associated Press obtained a memo sent by the NBA to team officials warning that “transnational South American theft groups” were using drones and other tech to target wealthy players. Also last year, The San Diego Union-Tribune reported that drones were believed to have been used in burglaries of beachside homes.
Siete Hamminga, CEO of Netherlands-based Robin Radar, which sells high-end detection systems, says drone-assisted burglaries have occurred in Europe, as well. “I don’t think it’s super common, but we have seen a number of cases in which drones were used for reconnaissance in high-end burglaries. Drones can be used to plan and to understand how a home is protected and they can also be used in real time, to help warn that they need to get out of there.”
The issue is getting more complicated due to rapid advancements in drone technology driven by the theater of war in Ukraine. The European Council on Foreign Relations says that more than 100 different types of drones have been used in the conflict over the past three years.
“The scary thing with the innovation that’s coming out of conflict zones is drones are becoming harder to detect and the rate this is happening is kind of unbelievable,” says Fraietta, who recently returned from working with Ukrainian drone teams to test a civilian protection system under development.
Drones are typically detected by their noise or the radio frequency (RF) an operator uses to pilot the craft. Fraietta says the technology is innovating in three ways: using AI to program portions of a preplanned flight path instead of relying on RF, making drone wings quieter, and using a wire like a kite string. “A tethered drone sounds silly at first,” he says. “But they’re fiber optic wires that also allow for 4K streaming, and the drone is not detectable by the police looking for a radio frequency. So they’re able to get away and move drones a lot quicker and quieter than a year ago.” Such teathers can literally be miles long.
Such cutting-edge drone tech hasn’t become a major issues outside the war zone — at least not yet. “In the private sector, we don’t see that much yet,” Hamminga says.
So what can a drone-harassed homeowner — celebrity or otherwise — do about it? If a drone is lurking, one can try calling a police non-emergency line. Is this likely to lead to an arrest? Not really, but a patrol car could discourage a drone operator from bothering you again, and it might result in a report file, which could be useful.
Drone detection systems are typically either RF or radar based. There are RF radar systems on the market for well under $100,000 that will alert you with an alarm to the presence of most common drones. “RF detection is affordable and it detects maybe more than 90 percent of drones, so it can at least provide situational awareness,” Hamminga says. While radar-based systems can typically spot 100 percent of drones, but cost at least $500,000 and aren’t typically purchased by commercial consumers.
Fraietta and his rivals also developing affordable systems that can track a drone’s flight patterns and integrate with smart-home tech to drop blinds or flash lights.
The one thing you can’t do is shoot the thing down or otherwise disable it, even if it’s hovering over your property. Drones are classified as aircraft, and taking one down violates the Aircraft Sabotage Act. “Which is not something you want to be charged with,” Fraietta notes. “If you want to secure your space from unwanted drones, think smart security, not shotgun.”
This story appeared in the March 19 issue of Best In Business 2024 magazine. Click here to subscribe.
