A property owner asks the remote pilot to photograph a neighbor's fenced backyard. The appropriate response is:

This item sits on the boundary between airspace authority and privacy law, two systems that do not overlap. The FAA regulates the airspace and says nothing about whether a particular image may be captured; privacy is governed by state statutes and common-law tort, and several states have enacted drone-specific surveillance provisions. So the fact that a flight is lawful under Part 107 answers only half the question. Deliberately photographing into a fenced backyard targets a space where the occupant has a reasonable expectation of privacy, and the request comes from a neighbour rather than the subject, which removes any argument for consent. Declining and explaining why is both the lawful answer and the one that protects the pilot from liability the FAA certificate does nothing to shield.

The pilot declines and explains that privacy expectations and state law govern this, not the FAA. A fenced backyard is the paradigm case of a space the occupant has screened from view, and the person requesting the images has no authority to consent on the neighbour's behalf.

The FAA's authority covers airspace and aircraft operation. Privacy, trespass and nuisance are matters of state law, and a number of states have passed statutes specifically addressing the use of unmanned aircraft to observe private property.

FAA Owns the Sky, the State Owns the Camera. A legal flight can still be an illegal photograph. Ask both questions before you launch.

Options that justify the flight purely on airspace grounds are a signature wrong answer on privacy scenarios. The examiners are checking that you know the two bodies of law are separate.

• •Treating navigable airspace as authorization to record anything visible from it
• •Believing the fence line, rather than what is captured, decides the issue
• •Assuming non-commercial use makes the capture lawful