Are these like military grade aerial drones or something? The one shown in the picture, and those many use to do prelim roof inspections, fly far too low - seems it would be encroachment of owner's property rights, no?
Do the drones need to be directly over the property to capture images? It can easily be done from the streets/sidewalk, which won't infringe on anyone's property rights.
I'm not an aficionado on latest drone tech, admittedly, but the old DJI my friend had - maybe could see on a shotgun house or something right on the street. There's no way it would be able to see mold on my house's roof at that distance without encroaching the property line, unless it was way worse than the homeowner was claiming here and lit up like a big grassy knoll.
>unless it was way worse than the homeowner was claiming here and lit up like a big grassy knoll.
The author is cagey about the extent of the moss growth. He brings up that "A small amount is largely harmless", but for whatever reason refuses to connect either parts of statement (ie. "small amount" or "largely harmless) to his roof specifically. The only thing we know about his roof is that "the moss was dying". My totally unfounded speculation is that the moss growth was actually pretty bad, but he didn't want that to get in the way of his 1500 word article about how companies are using AI to oppress consumers.
My girlfriend worked for an aerial imaging company for a while, and most of their imaging came from general aviation (small planes).
A commercial pilot's license requires 1500 hours of flight time under one's belt. The company paid them a small sum to strap a camera to their planes and fly certain routes. New pilots make some extra cash and the company gets cheap shots.
Pretty sure the pilot can't get paid until after they get their commercial license.
It's possible the company can however rent hours in the plane at below market costs (a friend did something like this years ago while getting his helicopter license)