Human Rights Defense Network Commentary on New Policies and Regulations: Ministry of Public Security Establishes a Bureau for Drone Safety and Security Prevention to Coordinate Low-Altitude Security Governance—In the Name of Safety, Squeezing the Last Inch of Freedom from Low-Altitude Airspace

Special Commentator: Zhang Haoran

According to a report by Southern Metropolis Daily, the Ministry of Public Security has established a Bureau for Drone Safety and Security Prevention as a new internal department. Its personnel were mainly selected and seconded from the Ministry of Public Security’s Public Order Administration Bureau and grassroots public security agencies, and it was established nearly a year ago. At a recent public security special session of the 2026 Low-Altitude Economy Industry Development Conference in Zigong, Sichuan, officials from the bureau publicly attended and performed their duties. The bureau is primarily responsible for public security controls in the drone sector, investigating and handling crimes and violations involving drones, low-altitude security at major events, and emergency response to sudden incidents. As the country accelerates the development of the low-altitude economy, drone applications continue to expand, while risks such as “unauthorized flights” and disruption to air traffic are increasing. Establishing a dedicated agency will advance the integrated development of a nationwide public security governance system for low-altitude safety. Many localities are currently building supporting forces in parallel, and some provinces are preparing to establish drone safety and security prevention corps. (For details, see: https://www.cqcb.com/news/13/2026-10-28/6245262.html )

Commentary: Regulating Drones: In the Name of Safety, Squeezing the Last Inch of Freedom from Low-Altitude Airspace

The ancients said: “When laws are vexatious, the people become deceitful; when government disrupts them, the people are unsettled.”

The disorder caused by drones flying without authorization, disrupting air traffic, dropping objects and injuring people, and spying on private life has long been a source of public hardship. Taking action to address it is entirely reasonable. But now that the establishment of the Ministry of Public Security’s Bureau for Drone Safety and Security Prevention has been announced, rather than cheering that “someone is finally taking charge,” we should look clearly at this: once a specialized regulatory agency is established, if its boundaries are unclear and its constraints inadequate, it can easily turn from a tool for “putting disorder right” into a lever for expanding power. If we do not heed the deeper drawbacks concealed behind the banner of “safety,” what ultimately gets bound will be far more than drones flying recklessly: it will be the vitality of the entire low-altitude airspace and ordinary people’s freedom.

The harms caused by drone-related disorder need no elaboration: entering restricted airspace and forcing flights to halt, crashing in busy urban areas and injuring passersby, hovering outside windows to spy on private life—each crosses the red line of public safety. But when addressing disorder, only “targeted enforcement” is the right path; it is never an excuse for “tightening controls everywhere.” The most common error in reasoning in practice is to immediately establish an agency, add approval requirements, and expand no-fly zones whenever something poses a risk, using the lazy governance of “one-size-fits-all” measures in place of fine-grained governance. The establishment of a dedicated regulatory agency gives this logic a concrete institutional lever for expansion.

The first drawback is the limitless expansion of regulatory boundaries, with flying freedoms being eroded layer by layer.

Controls in various localities have already shown a clear “urge to expand coverage”: legally designated no-fly zones should include only airport clearance zones and core critical areas, but in practice, urban centers, parks and scenic areas, suburban wetlands, and even ordinary farmland in townships can be arbitrarily brought under control. In many places, the rules have quietly shifted from “no-fly zones are listed; everywhere else is open to flight” to “permitted flight zones are listed; everywhere else is a no-fly zone.” The permitted zones keep shrinking, often leaving only remote corners that almost nobody visits.

After a dedicated agency is established, with full-time enforcement teams and routine regulatory powers, this urge to expand coverage will only grow stronger. After all, for a newly established agency, the broader its regulatory reach and the more matters it enforces, the better it can demonstrate the value of its existence. So, in the name of “absolute safety,” flying is prohibited over riverbanks, hills, and town centers. In the end, it becomes difficult for ordinary people even to find an empty, open patch of airspace for ordinary aerial photography. The ancient principle of “erring on the side of leniency rather than wrongfully punishing” is a judicial baseline, but in low-altitude governance it has become the lazy approach of “ban a thousand aircraft rather than let one fly.” As for ordinary people’s right to fly legally, it is always the first sacrifice made in the face of the sweeping label of “safety.”

The second drawback is enforcement discretion under vague rules, which can easily breed rent-seeking and departmental interests.

The main pain point in drone regulation has never been the absence of applicable laws, but rather rules that are too broad and excessive discretion. What kind of flight counts as “endangering public safety”? What circumstances warrant a warning, and which warrant confiscating a drone and imposing a fine? The standards remain consistently unclear. Cases of selective enforcement at the grassroots level have long been common: for the same aerial photography over an urban area, one person may have their drone confiscated on the spot and be fined several thousand yuan, while another faces no questioning at all.

With the dedicated agency in place, powers across the entire chain—from drone real-name registration, pilot qualification training, and airspace approval and filing, to investigating and handling violations—will be concentrated within the same system. Without effective oversight and constraints, this chain can easily turn into a channel for profit: compulsory designation of training providers, high-priced processing of various “flight certificates,” disguised fees at the filing stage, and enforcement that treats people differently depending on who they are… Regulation originally established for public safety may ultimately become a tool for departmental revenue generation and power rent-seeking. Sima Qian said, “Laws and decrees are tools for governance, not the source of order or corruption.” When regulation itself becomes a business, no matter how lofty the safety rationale, it cannot stop the rules from becoming corrupted.

The third drawback is that excessive regulation suffocates industrial vitality, causing the low-altitude economy to decline before it can flourish.

The country’s push for the low-altitude economy is intended to open up airspace resources and unleash the potential of new sectors such as drone logistics, agricultural crop protection, emergency rescue, and geographic surveying and mapping. But the practical approach to regulation remains stuck on the old path of “control it first, then see.” To carry out a routine crop-protection operation, a company must go through several layers of approval from civil aviation authorities, public security, and the local township, taking three to five days at a minimum and more than half a month at the longest. For urban low-altitude logistics pilot projects, every route must undergo layer upon layer of assessment and repeated approval, with efficiency far below expectations.

The core principle of low-altitude governance in the West is “anything not prohibited by law is permitted”: clearly list the scenarios and areas where flying is prohibited, and open all remaining airspace so the market and innovation can develop on their own. Our approach is often “you cannot fly without approval,” treating every flight as risky by default and requiring administrative permission for it to be legal. Now that a dedicated regulatory agency has been established, if it continues the approach of “regulation first, service second,” it will only put heavier shackles on the low-altitude economy. Companies will be exhausted by approval procedures, and private-sector innovation will be bound by rules and restrictions. In the end, everything may appear calm under tight control, while we miss the entire era-defining opportunity for the low-altitude industry. Zheng Banqiao wrote, “Trim away the complex; simplify like autumn trees. Lead with the new; stand out like February flowers.” Governance of innovative industries should involve subtraction, but if it only adds more, even the most promising sector will be worn down by red tape.

Ultimately, the purpose of drone regulation is to make the sky safer, not emptier.

“Your rights end at the tip of another person’s nose”—this is the most basic boundary of freedom: as long as they do not enter no-fly zones, harm passersby, or invade privacy, ordinary people’s enjoyment of piloting drones to take in the mountains and rivers, and companies’ right to develop industries based on low-altitude airspace, should not be arbitrarily taken away. Safety is a baseline, but it should not become an excuse for the unlimited expansion of power; regulation is a means, but it should not become the sole purpose of governance.

The ancients said, “The sky is high, and birds may fly wherever they will.” Under a clear, boundless sky, airspace is one of the most universally accessible public resources. If, in pursuit of zero risk, the reach of control keeps expanding and airspace is regulated ever more tightly, and the result is that disorder is curbed but freedom is shackled and vitality stifled, that is a complete reversal of priorities.

Good governance has never meant that the more you regulate, the more capable you are; it means that the more precisely you regulate, the wiser you are. Drawing firm red lines, opening up all other airspace, punishing those who cross the boundaries, and treating those who follow the rules fairly—that is what low-altitude governance should look like.