Three Cases of Drone 'Illegally Flying' Exposed in China
TapTechNews June 20th, the Ministry of National Security released a document today, exposing three cases of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) "illegally flying" and "randomly flying".
In recent years, national security agencies have investigated many cases of UAVs' illegal patrol flights, shooting classified facilities and sensitive parts and transmitting and sharing them on the Internet. These illegal acts have caused potential leaks of classified information to our core military facilities and important geographical information, and the relevant people involved have also been subject to legal sanctions.
1. Spying on military intelligence and illegally shooting important military facilities
In November 2021, Luo, a enthusiast in a domestic military forum, in order to find a better topic of conversation, used a UAV with a long-distance high-definition camera function to illegally shoot a new type of warship and was discovered and investigated by the national security agency.
Upon identification by the relevant departments, the photos and videos taken by Luo involved 2 classified military secrets at the confidential level and 1 classified military secret at the secret level. Eventually, Luo was sentenced to 1 year in prison with a 1-year suspension due to "illegally obtaining state secrets."
2. Peeping at key places and illegally collecting sensitive geographical information
Liu, the head of an important mapping project of a domestic aerial survey institution, without review and approval and without obtaining permission, used a UAV with a shooting function in daily work to conduct flight mapping on a key classified and vulnerable part, took multi-angle, high-resolution picture information, and collected and stored relevant high-precision aerial survey data, causing major technical security risks and was dealt with by the national security agency in accordance with the law, and the potential leak risk was timely eliminated.
3. Entering restricted areas without permission and privately uploading and sharing sensitive data
Two employees, Li and Zhang, of a certain company, in carrying out a regular inspection project task arranged by the company, had weak legal awareness. Without applying and reporting to the local air traffic control center and other departments, they conducted patrol flights and collected data in a certain military restricted area in our country and uploaded the data to an online cloud disk and WeChat group for sharing.
Upon identification, the actions of Li and Zhang's illegal patrol flight, collection, and network sharing and transmission of military secrets have seriously endangered the security of our national defense military secrets and constituted a crime of illegally obtaining state secrets, and they were legally punished.
TapTechNews note: The "Interim Regulations on the Flight Management of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles" stipulates that it is prohibited to use unmanned aerial vehicles to illegally shoot military facilities, military-industrial facilities or other classified places; it is prohibited to illegally obtain, disclose national secrets, or illegally provide data and information to overseas. As users of UAV equipment, one should abide by laws and regulations, standardize one's own behavior, pay attention to no-fly zones, and avoid illegally shooting classified places.
--No-fly zones. The airspace set for protecting national security, important military facilities, special administrat ive areas, etc. is the no-fly zone. Common no-fly zones include airport and surrounding areas, military restricted areas, military control areas, nuclear facility areas, power plants, railway electrified lines, etc.
--Requirements for no-fly. Before obtaining relevant permission and authorization from the air traffic management agency, no one is allowed to take off the UAV in the no-fly zone, let alone implement actions such as shooting, videoing, surveying, and measuring and positioning in the no-fly zone.
--Responsibility for no-fly. Illegally patrolling the UAV in the no-fly zone will face administrative penalties of warning and heavy fines, and the UAV will be confiscated or destroyed; if accidents such as causing casualties or property losses occur, civil liability should be assumed; taking off in the controlled airspace will be subject to criminal liability in accordance with the law.