Filming In Public
Check our National Trust, English Heritage and Natural England sections to learn about flying over their properties.
If you fly sub 250g, or UK0, UK1, C0 or C1 class drone, you will benefit from the freedoms of flying in public spaces without the regulations heavier drones have.
Public Interference
Flying your drone can attract interest from passersby. If you're flying it over or close to commercial properties or landmarks, this can also spark the interest from company employees, volunteers or security.
As a member of the public you can film in a public space without a permit or permission and this includes filming with your drone. As a responsible drone operator, you should always respect other peoples privacy. Whilst flying over and filming commercial sites is allowed, try to avoid flying over or filming residental properties without consent and be considerate if your public recording overlaps onto recording private land, properties or people on there. Download the official ACPO guidelines for police on public filming.
Company/Employee Interference
Any policies a company may have in relation to drones and drone flights applies to their site and their employees only. They do not and can not be applied to members of the public when on public land. If they choose not to allow drone flights over their property, ban photography on site or prevent videos being taken of their buildings; these apply to employees and visitors of the company only, and not members of the public. As a member of the public, you're allowed to film what you can see. See this page for more information.
The Met Police have a dedicated article on public filming outlining the law around what police officers can and can't do in relation to handling equipment, deleting images and video and in dealing with the photographer.
Watching this DJ Audits video, you can see just how wrong the public get this and how they blindly trust what others say and simply repeat and share incorrect information. DJ Audits knows the law but he plays along allowing the staff to discover the truth for themselves.
Emergency Response Effort and CAP 722
There are certain situations where flying in public is deemed illegal and may well result in action against you, for example, flying over or close to an emergency response. The CAA's CAP 722 document clearly defines this and clearly explains this is unlawful.
Section 4.2.2.3 In-flight responsibilities
Ensure that the UA is not flown close to or inside any areas where an emergency response effort is ongoing, unless they have permission to do so from the responsible emergency response personnel.
Note: The term ‘emergency response effort’ covers any activities by police, fire, ambulance, coastguard or other similar services where action is ongoing in order to preserve life, protect the public or respond to a crime in progress. This includes activities such as road traffic collisions, fires, rescue operations and firearms incidents, although this list is not exhaustive.
Airspace over and around an emergency response must be clear for emergency service use and flying your drone here - although in a public space - may well result in your drone being grounded and you likely facing arrest.
In this video, Reggie Photo is flying his drone in Preston to video a fire. The police arrive and he is subsequently arrested. Now, although I feel it was his approach and attitude to the situation was ultimately what got him arrested, I also feel the police handled the situation extremely badly indeed! The police jumped in citing the Air Navigation Order but if the police knew what they were doing, they would have nailed him for breaching the CAA CAP 722 rules. This YouTuber is so focused on the response to his arrest and showing the police in a bad light, his video is actually incriminating him
Another example of this can be seen by DJE Media when he flies his drone over police station fire in Forest Gate. Only here, the police aren't aware of the legislation and the powers they have to stop the flight. This flight is technically illegal. This information is also published in Section 8 of the CAA Drone Code which DJE Media would have read in order to obtain his Operator ID.
Other Interactions
There are three likely interactions you'll deal with as a drone pilot. Those with the general public, the police and employees (including security) of companies.