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Comment by dmckeon | Hacker News Reader

This prohibition shall not apply where the image does not reveal forms identifiable as human beings or man-made objects.

Seems like a poor distinction to me - "identifiable" by what? A human eyeball, infra-red, multi-spectral analysis?

This would allow imaging of forests, fields, and streams, but not man-made objects like roads, bridges, dams, or the more navigable waters (might contain humans).

Perhaps the sponsor expects image-creators to blur out anything that might be a human or man-made object?

How would this affect the usage of self-driving cars? You could image a deer crossing the road, but not a human? (Note the prohibition is on image creation, not publication.)

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> This would allow imaging of forests, fields, and streams, but not man-made objects like roads, bridges, dams, or the more navigable waters (might contain humans).

I wonder how much of a stretch it would be to imagine some court ruling that trees could be considered man-made objects if they were planted by humans.

Or, more sinister, crops and other agricultural lands. Which would prevent monitoring by environmental groups for run-off control and such.

well if you want to think the worst in people...

I would say this law would be a pain for farmers and ranchers that are taking the next steps in technology. Plus architects would get caught eventually.

> "How would this affect the usage of self-driving cars? "

It wouldn't. Puzzlingly, this law seeks to ban aerial drone surveillance while explicitly allowing any surveillance, by person or drone, conducted by a device or person supported by the ground.

So an aerial paparazzi drone would be illegal. But a veritable army of paparazzi ground drones, even ringing a property and photographing every inch of the same people and/or structures, would be legal.

Another loophole is that the bill states that any device affixed to the ground is acceptable. A weather balloon and a camera tethered to my car with several hundred meters of rope would presumably be alright.

Or a quad-copter tethered with a very long spool of fishing filament? :D

That's not supported, it's constrained.

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