The government is to require certain uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs) to be equipped with a radio frequency identification (RFID) equipment following an amendment to the Civil Aviation Act (民用航空法) yesterday.
The purpose of registering the drones is to know who their owners are, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Chung Chia-pin (鍾佳濱) said, adding that owners would be punished if they contravene the act.
Simply having the registration number on the body of the drones is not enough, Chung said, adding that the government would be thinking like “stone-age people” if it only required the registration number be placed on the memory cards of the drones.
The government should be able to identify people controlling drones remotely using wireless electronic devices, he said.
The legislature’s Transportation Committee ruled that drone owners can only operate their devices after they acquire licenses from the Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA).
Drones that can be remotely controlled must have RFID functionality if they are in a certain weight category, it said.
The rule is stipulated by the CAA to regulate the use of drones more effectively, the committee said, adding that it could also seek assistance from police to crackdown UAVs operated illegally.
Drone owners would be punished based on the way that they operate the drones, CAA Director-General Lin Kuo-hsien (林國顯) said, adding that failure to register their drones would be one of the offenses that call for a penalty.
The CAA would establish a registration platform so that people can use their health insurance cards, national ID cards or national ID certificates to register their drones the way people register their cars or motorcycles, Lin said.
The amendment also requires the Ministry of Transportation and Communications to stipulate the rules of enforcement governing the registration, certifications, maintenance and operation of drones, as well as qualifications of drone operators and responsibilities of drone manufacturers.
In related news, whether former CAA employees would violate the revolving-door policy for government workers should they choose to work in soon-to-be-established StarLux Airlines would depend on the interpretation from the government personnel authority, the CAA said.
The airline, founded by former EVA Air chairman Chang Kuo-wei (張國煒), is reported to have offered a retired CAA aircraft inspector a management position.
“We have heard the report, but most of our inspectors are contractors and whether the Civil Servant Work Act (公務員服務法) applies to them is in question,” CAA Flight Standards Division Director Clark Lin (林俊良) said.
“We cannot make that judgement. We will seek interpretation from government personnel agencies on this matter after we have received the application from StarLux, which has yet to be established,” Lin said.
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