Last month the FAA announced that drone owners would be required to register their drones with the agency. The drone registration act is expected to come into effect on the 21st of December, 2015 meaning that if you haven’t registered your drone already, you should probably get on that ASAP.
Drone registrations are now open and in case you’re hearing about this for the first time, existing drone owners have until the 19th of February, 2016 to register their devices. For those who purchase new drones after the 21st of December, they will be required to register their drones before taking it out for a spin.
For those who can’t be bothered, note that there will be some pretty harsh penalties involved for breaking the law. Assuming you get caught with an unregistered drone, you could face a fine of up to $27,500 or face up to 3 years in prison. So if you’d like to avoid getting into trouble with the law, pop on over to the FAA’s website to register your device.
Note that the FAA is trying to encourage drone registrations by waiving the registration fee for the first month. After that drone owners will be required to pay a registration fee of $5. While the registration is pretty much straightforward and relatively harmless, there are some who are unsurprisingly unhappy about it, namely model aircraft builders who claim to have operated safely for decades and are asking its members to boycott the registration.