‘You wouldn’t have your Granny using them’: Drawing Boundaries between Acceptable and Unacceptable Applications of Civil Drones

Some industry and policy actors are concerned about public opposition to civil drones arising from their association with military applications. Very little is understood about public reactions to the technology and strategies to ‘manage public acceptance’ have so far relied upon several untested assumptions. We conducted public engagement activities to explore citizens’ visions of civil drones. Several insights counteracted the prevailing assumptions. Rejecting the notion of blanket support for or opposition to civil drones in general, we explore how our citizen participants decide which uses of civil drones are acceptable to them and which are not. The results are positioned in the context of calls to improve the role of citizens in civil drone development, in particular to shift away from the current focus on citizens’ acceptance of drones towards the development of civil drones that are acceptable to citizens.

BOUCHER Philip; 

2015-11-12

SPRINGER

JRC95222

1353-3452,   

https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC95222,   

10.1007/s11948-015-9720-7,