UAS Public Perception Towards Privacy and Multimedia Configuration

The purpose of this study was to reveal public perception on the use of unmanned aerial systems (UAS) configurations of multimedia and provide a greater understanding of specific UAS configuration with respect to privacy. The participants were presented with four scenarios: audio multimedia, video multimedia, audio/video multimedia, and no multimedia. The data suggests that citizens are most concerned about privacy when the UAS was equipped with either video or audio/video capabilities. Privacy concerns were close to neutral when the UAS had no equipment on-board. In general, females were more concerned over privacy than males, except in the no equipment scenario. These findings may be of interest to UAS operators or those in government to help understand citizen privacy concerns when UAS are operated and based on the type of equipment that may be on-board.