No they can’t. At least not easily at all. It takes a lot of specialized tools to sort out a drone signal from all the other background noise. They use some radio, but also cellular, wifi or bluetooth. The hundreds of signals in the immediate area of any sensors and having to sift through all of them is crazy, much less from 2-3 positions to get an accurate location of the transmitter. I live in a suburban area, and sitting in my living room I have 15 wifi signals and 7 BT. Now imagine a more urban setting in crowds all with phones running cellular, wifi, bluetooth, car systems, radio keyfobs, home and business wifi, etc.
It’s far easier to GPS jam the drone and have it drop down in lost mode, then see if you can trace ownership via serial number. Either way, seizing the drone stops the filming and the owner is out the cost of the hardware.
Newer drones are literally required by law to broadcast their remote ID, which also contains location identification. Yes, they can track you very easily.
Sure, there are cheap drones that don’t abide by these requirements, and a DIY system can get around it, but the point stands that basically any “name brand” non-toy drone sold in the US is going to tell the anyone interested your location the moment you turn the transmitter on.
The fact that they can track your controller and hunt you down.
No they can’t. At least not easily at all. It takes a lot of specialized tools to sort out a drone signal from all the other background noise. They use some radio, but also cellular, wifi or bluetooth. The hundreds of signals in the immediate area of any sensors and having to sift through all of them is crazy, much less from 2-3 positions to get an accurate location of the transmitter. I live in a suburban area, and sitting in my living room I have 15 wifi signals and 7 BT. Now imagine a more urban setting in crowds all with phones running cellular, wifi, bluetooth, car systems, radio keyfobs, home and business wifi, etc.
It’s far easier to GPS jam the drone and have it drop down in lost mode, then see if you can trace ownership via serial number. Either way, seizing the drone stops the filming and the owner is out the cost of the hardware.
Newer drones are literally required by law to broadcast their remote ID, which also contains location identification. Yes, they can track you very easily.
https://www.faa.gov/uas/getting_started/remote_id
Sure, there are cheap drones that don’t abide by these requirements, and a DIY system can get around it, but the point stands that basically any “name brand” non-toy drone sold in the US is going to tell the anyone interested your location the moment you turn the transmitter on.