Can Drones See Inside Your House?

Drones have been used for several decades in military and research missions. Their technology has advanced so much that they have various capabilities. Today, almost anyone can afford a high tech drone with a variety of options. But as much as they have advantages, they also has their disadvantages if they find themselves in wrong hands. Nowadays, people often use drones for personal purposes, thus flying over someone else’s property, and this raises the question of privacy. But what if drones also have the ability to see inside your house? Lets find out what drones can actually see.

So Can Drones See Inside Your House? No, drones that are available today on the market do not have the ability to see inside your house unless they approach your window and record what they can see through the window. However, the military has developed drones with thermal cameras that have the ability to see through walls.

Drones today have the ability to help fight crime and terrorists, but if they get into the wrong hands, they can also do so much harm to someone. As we know, paparazzi have been using drones for years to spy on celebrities and sell those photos for money. Now that practice has shifted to anonymous people as well.

Drones also have the ability to hack and compromise your WiFi. What the drone has to do is get close enough to your house and pick up the RF signals coming from your router. A skilled hacker can thus access your Internet data and connect to the cameras and microphones in your home, thereby gaining full control if you have cameras in your home.

Burglars Are Using Drones to Target Homes

Demand for drones is increasing today, and since drones have many capabilities and sensors, this makes them very dangerous, especially if they are in the hands of thieves. Today, almost every drone has a built-in high quality camera that can record HD videos. With this, burglars can scout and collect information about your house and evaluate how well you are insured. They can also see if your house is empty or not.

Our homes are not as well protected as we think they are most often. They have many drawbacks that today’s thieves can take advantage of, and they are further aided by drones. Mini drones available on the market today for only $50 have the ability to take aerial photos, which is a potential danger. The thief can gain a better look of what awaits him if he chooses to rob your house. Cases have been reported where thieves searched the garages through drones before stealing a car and knew exactly what awaits them.

Advantages That Burglars Have by Using Drones

The advantage that thieves have today when using drones is that they are at a safe distance when viewing a potential target. That means, even if you were to catch and discover the drone (UAV) who is spying on you, it doesn’t mean that you would necessarily catch those burglars, and that gives them an advantage. Also one of the advantages is that they can thoroughly inspect and record your home and the things inside. Drones are very cheap these days, but they are also noisy, so it’s easy to spot and notice a drone which is on your window (if you’re there).

Ways To Protect Your Home From Drones

Now that we have seen all the potential dangers that drones can create, it’s time to see how we can protect ourselves from those same drones. First you need to know that the drones are not quiet and they are creating buzzing noise, so you can easily notice them. So if you find yourself in a situation where someone’s drone is flying around your house, you can do some of the following.

1. Contact the police and describe the situation to them
2. Ask the Owner of that drone to Stop flying around your house (if you know who it is)
3. Use your phone and take a picture of a drone that is flying around your home
4. Try to catch the drone with the help of some sort of net and then call the police. When gripping, be careful not to injure yourself with drone blades.
5. Buy Anti-Drone guns to disable drones from flying around your house
6. Buy radio frequency jammer to disable drones

Note: Do not use any weapons if you see a drone around your house If you use a weapon you could injure someone and that is a criminal offense. Do not endanger neighbors and other people near you for this reason.

Best Way to Defend Your House Against a Drone

Radio Frequency Jammer: The picture shows a Wi-Fi and radio frequency suppressor in the 2.4 GHz and 5.8 GHz bands. It operates in a radius of 300 meters, costs a little over $3000 and is positioned as a “jammer for drones”. You have these Jammers available online. A variety of “jammers” are freely sold in online stores. But before purchasing them, you should carefully read the decree “On the procedure for the registration of electronic devices and high-frequency devices.” And think about protecting your health. These devices radiate a lot, so you should be able to handle them.

How To Know If Drone is Spying Your House?

Drones today are made of a different materials, vary in sizes and have multiple functionalities. They range from large professional drones to the smallest ones that are palm-sized. It is these mini drones that sometimes can be imperceptible because of their size. In order for a commercial drone to spy on you, it must come close to your house and record you from a near distance (your window). You will hardly encounter sophisticated military-owned drones that are equipped with thermocameras. So you don’t have to fear that the drone will be monitoring you from the window without you noticing it.  One of the reasons is that the drone has to be positioned right in front of the window in order to record you, and you would certainly notice that. Another reason is that drones create buzzing noise. It’s not that big, but it’s not even inaudible that you wouldn’t notice it. So these are the reasons why you would certainly notice if some drone is spying on you.

The Israeli firm Tzur has made a drone whose main functionality is spying. It is designed to be almost inaudible and has built-in thermocameras that can see what’s behind the walls. This drone is almost inaudible, easily controllable, and has the ability to position itself so that it can hover at the same point for long periods of time.

Drones Can See Through Walls Thanks to WiFi

Two Californian researchers have developed a device allowing two drones to see the interior of a building in 3D by passing a Wi-fi signal through it. See through the walls and draw a map of the room behind it with decimetric precision. This is what a duo of researchers from the University of Santa Barbara in California managed to do, using two drones . In theory, the system is quite simple. A machine with a wifi wave transmittervia a directional antenna is positioned outside a building. The radio waves emitted by the first drone will partly pass through obstacles (walls, furniture, ventilation ducts, people inside …) and partly bounce off them and spread. By measuring how the original signal was changed during this crossing, the team was able to recreate a kind of imprint of the room through which they passed, as we can see in the video below.

Naturally, to obtain an accurate and three-dimensional mapping, it is essential to have several measurements. And this is where the use of drones to carry wifi transmitters and receivers come into their own. Indeed the two flying machines can easily sweep the surface of the wall of the room to be mapped, without the height of the room being a constraint. The researchers even propose an ideal trajectory for this surface scan so as to obtain the best possible mapping in a minimum of time. And the process seems to work well if we believe the images extracted from the article describing this work . 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THu3ZvAHI9A&feature=emb_title

Can You Shoot Someone’s Drone?

Anyone who sees their personal rights are being violated would like to reach for some kind of weapon and get that drone off the air. Basically, you have the right to do something about the annoying drone, as attorney Christian Solmecke told: “People whose rights are violated by drones flying or filming, of course, can defend themselves. Similar to self-defense against people the law allows for the so-called self-help , things that pose a risk of damaging or even destroying it.”

However, you should not be too happy: You can only use these resources if you have not been able to call the police at that moment . If your neighbor decides to report you because of his property being destroyed, you need evidence that the circumstances allowed you to do so – which may prove difficult. Therefore, you should carefully consider this step.

Do the Police Have Right To Use Drones to Spy?

Police today has the right to use drones in rescue and crisis missions and at crime scenes for which they do not need a warrant. Currently, police use drones only in public-emergency cases. They also have permission to use drones in public places such as stadiums and parades so they can record some potential cases and use the video as evidence. As for the private spying using drones, the police still do not have permission to do so. Therefore, the use of drones is not allowed even for the police to collect video evidence if there is a suspected criminal offense within the private property.

Can Your Neighbor Prohibit You From Flying Over His Property?

In principle, the owner has the right to demand that his property not be impaired. According to the prevailing opinion among lawyers, this also applies to the airspace above. However, he has to tolerate “proper overflights according to aviation law”. However, this should not apply to the noisy low-altitude entry of private drones onto the property. In particular, in cases where the drone also has a camera on board, it can be assumed that this can be seen as an impairment of property and privacy that the landowner can prohibit. However, there are currently no specific judgments on this problem. In any case, the needs of residents and neighbors should be taken into account when flying with drones.

What Law Say About Privacy Through Drones?

The technology that drones possess today can be used for good and bad purposes. The law prohibits the use of drones to spy, record and fly over people’s private property. Many countries around the world have laws that protect the privacy of citizens from situations like that. The first people to use drones for the purpose of espionage others were paparazzi. They used drones for the purpose of recording celebrities, thereby violating their privacy. This trend is increasingly popular today, and people are using it to spy on their neighbors, friends, or other people. This violates their privacy and there are serious penalties for such offenses. The only problem is that this technology is available to everyone today and can be misused easily.

Conclusion

Drones are being used more and more today and they are almost impossible to avoid. They are getting smaller, quieter and have high quality cameras with which they can record almost anything. Today’s commercial drones do not have the ability to see inside your home unless they are outside your window and record what they can see. But you don’t have to worry about it, because you’ll definitely notice them by the buzz they create. And there are some military drones that have the ability and technology to see inside your home, but they are not used for these purposes but in military missions only. So you don’t have to fear that your house will be the target of such drones. If I forgot something, or would like to add, feel free to leave a comment below.