INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. — More farmers are using drones to try to increase yields, and now there’s legislation in Indiana aimed at preventing a bumper crop of aerial “Peeping Toms” before they can take root.Senate Bill 299, signed into law by Gov. Eric Holcomb on April 21, makes it a Class A misdemeanor to use an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) for acts of voyeurism or harassment, and for interfering with a drone being used for law enforcement purposes.

 

The legislation, approved unanimously in both the House and Senate during the recently completed 2017 Indiana General Assembly session, also makes it a Level 6 felony if convicted twice for the same offense or if compromising images of people captured from an UAV are published, transmitted or posted on the internet. Use of drones for unethical purposes may or may not have already occurred in Indiana, but lawmakers wanted to nip it in the bud before any problems develop.

 “While the development of drone technology has a substantial benefit for society, we need to ensure they are not used to commit crimes,” said state Sen. Eric Koch, a Republican from Bedford and co-author of the legislation.

 

He said the bill was not in response to any specific complaint received. It was strictly to be proactive before any problems arise: “Like anything else, there can be misuse of a good thing.”

 

One of the more recent examples of drone voyeurism was in December when a couple from Utah were videotaped inside their home. One of the victims saw the device outside his bathroom window, and grabbed it after chasing it down in his truck. The culprits were eventually arrested from a license plate number captured in the video.

 It was about a year ago when a Kentucky man shot down his neighbor’s drone in Louisville, claiming it was spying on his 16-year-old daughter while she sunbathed. There have also been reports of cameraequipped drones hovering above yards and beside windows in other states including North Dakota, Alaska and New Hampshire.

 Drones are becoming increasingly popular in agriculture, to see if they’re more effective for monitoring the health of crops in the middle of fields to help struggling plants in a more efficient manner than physically walking the rows. Chris Hurt, professor of agricultural economics at Purdue University, said factors like disease, pests and weeds could be spotted easier with drones, perhaps, especially in cornfields once those plants become shoulder-high.

 

Although the presence of drones has increased, he believes such technology in agriculture is still in the experimental stages and in, some cases, its use is more recreational. Whether UAVs become a standard tool in farming hinges on the outcome of studies on their benefits to agriculture.

 

“Is it fun and interesting and I like to do it, or does it really reduce my cost and increase yields?” Hurt explained.

 

He said robotics for carrying out tasks such as harvesting is another spoke in the “Big Data” wheel sweeping agriculture and many other industries, to try to further reduce costs while increasing production. Some studies are even looking at whether sensing devices can be used to measure just how much sunlight gets into field corn from top to bottom.

 

“We’re trying to get all of that data to learn what really does impact the economic variables. That is a major trend and drones are part of that,” said Hurt.