What Does a Drone See?: How Aerial Data Resolution Impacts Data Protection

The introduction of General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) means that organisations are responsible for data protection for all individuals within the E.U. One area of operation that is unclear is to what degree aerial camera systems capture personal data. Mega-pixels and ground sampling distance are normally used as metrics for camera resolution but they ignore a multitude of factors and do not re ect the actual resolving power of the camera system. This work examines the resolution gap by detailing what is actually captured in the image output and how this can be used as an objective measure when addressing privacy concerns. A methodology is described for easily benchmarking the output for different camera systems at different heights and then two of the most commonly used capture systems on modern drones are evaluated. Finally, we examine how this can be applied to GDPR policy and how aerial surveys can be constructed that remove any personal data from the dataset.