GREENSBORO, N.C. — Drones can fly just about anywhere.
A Greensboro woman told us one was flying over her yard and followed her every move.
She walked right and the drone flew right.
She went left and the drone followed.
So she wanted to know if it's even legal to fly drones over private property like your home.
To verify we looked up Federal Aviation Administration rules, North Carolina regulations and spoke with Greensboro Police.
There are different sets of rules for people who fly drones as a hobby and those who fly commercially.
So for the sake of this story we're sticking to flying for fun.
The FAA has a few rules when it comes to where you can fly.
- Drones have to be at or below 400 feet.
- Can't fly within 5 miles of an airport or no fly zones.
- Can't fly near a stadium, prison, public event or directly over people.
- Drones have to be in your line of sight..
- Can't fly over emergency response efforts.
It doesn't mention anything about flying in neighborhoods or over a home.
So lets take a look at state regulations.
State law says you can't use drones to conduct surveillance on someone bor to take pictures or video without someone's consent to share them or profit off of them. That's according to General Statue 15A-300.1.
Greensboro police say these laws are tricky.
Ronald Glenn, a GPD spokesperson, clarified surveillance doesn't mean just flying over a home.
It refers more to trying to track someone for information gathering.But when it comes to privacy, legally the owner of the drone can take photos,
It's only illegal if they distribute or sell the pictures.
If you believe that's what happened, you can get police involved, but they might not be able to do much about it.
It may make you uneasy, but we can verify, yes drones are allowed to fly over your home.
You can't shoot them down either.