Drones Owners Have to Start Registering Drones With FAA or Face Fines
Starting next week, drone owners will have to register their flying vehicles with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
Drones are a hot holiday gift this season, but with the fun involved comes responsibility. Registration will open Dec. 21 and will be free of cost until Jan. 20. The FAA has opened up a special drone registration website for drone owners.
If drone owners miss the Jan. 20 deadline, they will be charged $5 to register their drone, CNet reports. The FAA's Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) registration website also answers frequently asked questions on where drones can be flown and how to responsibly fly them.
Any drone weighing between 0.55 to 55 pounds that is classified as a hobbyist drone needs to be registered with the FAA. All hobbyist drones, not just the expensive ones, need to be registered.
Business use of drones has been delayed and prohibited unless the FAA has given the company a special exemption to fly the drones. The FAA is expected to release rules on commercial use of drones by mid-2016. These rules would affect companies like Amazon and Google who plan on using drones for deliveries.
Drones are usually quadcopters with a camera attached to the vehicle. Hobbyists have been interested in drones because they enjoy flying them, taking aerial pictures and even racing them.
With more drones in the sky, the FAA has been concerned with reports of unsafe flying of them. In 2014, there were 238 reports of unsafe flying of drones, a figure that has rapidly increased during 2015 to 1,133 unsafe flying reports for drones so far.
When registering their drones, owners will have to provide their full name, address and email address. The owners will also have to mark their drones with the FAA registration number or provide the FAA with the serial number.
Failure to register drones can result in hefty fines -- up to $27,500 in civil penalties and up to $250,000 in criminal fines.
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