Drone Technology in Sri Lanka: Urgency for an Effective Legal Framework

Abstract

The evolution of technology has paved the way to an era where anybody can accomplish their tasks with minimal effort. Among the various technologies that are being widely used in the world, drone technology shares a prominent place since it is an impressive outcome of technology development. Drones which are also known as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV’s) are, aircraft either controlled by pilots from the ground or autonomously following a preprogrammed mission. The persistent developments in the drone technology made it applicable in many fields in a beneficial manner. Despite all those positive aspects the numerous capabilities of drones carry a potential threat to the liberty of the people and security of the countries. Due to the perpetual development of technology the drones will be equipped with even more fascinating abilities in the future. Thus, it is of utmost importance to identify the line between the effective and excessive use of drone technology. It is the legal system of a country which has the power and ability to define the limitation and boundaries for an effective and secure use of drones. Therefore, this research has been conducted to analyze the current legal system on the use of drones in Sri Lanka and to find out the loopholes in the current legal framework in terms of regulating the use of drones. In that, the legal research methodology was applied, supported by primary data such as legislations and secondary data such as journal articles, newspaper articles and case reports. The constant issues arising due to ungoverned use of drones consistently prove the inefficiency of the current framework in addressing the problem. This stresses the importance of formulating a conceptual legal framework in order to regulate the unethical and unwanted use of drones. In conclusion, being a country which is heading towards development, Sri Lanka also processes the need to consolidate the existing legal framework regarding drone regulations. Therefore, further attempt was made to propose some suggestions to the government to successfully address the matter of excessive unnecessary use of drones.