A STUDY ON DRONE USE REGULATIONS IN SINGAPORE AND HOW THESE COULD BE BENCHMARKED AGAINST UNITED STATES AND UNITED KINGDOM FOR FUTURE ENHANCEMENTS

Abstract

Drones are becoming increasingly popular in Singapore and are often used for aerial filming and photography, surveillance, and inspecting facilities. Singapore’s aviation body, the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (“CAAS”) has proposed several enhancements to the Unmanned Aircraft (UA) regulatory framework in April 2018. Given the lack of research in Singapore’s UA (drone) regulations, and CAAS’ latest push for enhancements, this study sets out to explore the gaps. This research aims to study Singapore’s drone use regulation by obtaining opinions from drone experts and how the regulations can be refined after briefly assessing the drone laws by United States (“US”), United Kingdom (“UK”) and international standards by ISO. This study shall: highlight the importance of drones and its regulations in Singapore; evaluate the effectiveness of the 2018 proposed enhancements to Singapore’s UA Regulations; propose further refinement; and determine the developments needed for international drone standards. Literature review was done to understand the drone industry, drone-related incidents, and to justify the lack of consistent global standards. Case studies and interviews were analysed to gather insights on drones and effective regulations. Based on the findings, several recommendations were developed to guide CAAS on future directions to take. Lastly, limitations of the research were identified specifically on the limited sample size for case studies, the scope of study being Singapore-specific, and possible information bias. Future research can develop in-depth studies on global drone standards and review the final changes to the UA Act or other aviation acts in Singapore.