In the past few years the use of unmanned aerial vehicles in Lithuania has significantly increased. However, enjoying the advantages of this technology, which improves society’s socio-economical safety (public safety in a broad sense), raises some privacy concerns. This article analyses European Union and national legal regulations regarding the use of unmanned aerial vehicles as well as legal tools for defence of the right to privacy or prevention from its breaches in the Republic of Lithuania. Unmanned aerial vehicles have become popular only recently; thus, legislation regarding their use has not yet become a common topic among lawyers. Furthermore, case law of the Republic of Lithuania is silent about it. Thus, the authors model a situation of breach of privacy using an unmanned aerial vehicle and analyse possible defence mechanisms.

The world has been changing rapidly and with surprise we keep watching how the new technologies develop. If fifty years ago to an ordinary user having a video recorder was something inconceivable, now probably anybody could have it in a pocket. Even flying cars, that could a few years back be only dreamed of, now are becoming a reality and it will not take ages until they fill up our space. Along with the modern technologies we notice how it is becoming easy to gather information: with the help of drones we can capture images, record, conduct search; video recording, surveillance cameras mounted on buildings, in cars can capture visual information about everything that is on the way. However, herewith there is a great concern about whether it is possible to tackle threats caused by these technologies and especially threat to people’s privacy. Thus, it could be said that filming devices are the best tool to collect the most accurate information. However, along with the development of image capturing devices and other technologies, people’s concern about their privacy grows. And this could be confirmed by the General Data Protection Regulation  which came into force just recently.  The fact that the necessity of such regulation was noticed by the European Union proves that people’s private information as a part of their right to private life, had been in danger. The same, confirming the novelty and actuality of the topic, is stated in the preamble of the GDPR: “Rapid technological developments and globalisation have brought new challenges for the protection of personal data. The scale of the collection and sharing of personal data has increased significantly. Technology allows both private companies and public authorities to make use of personal data on an unprecedented scale in order to pursue their activities.” Adding to the latter, the GDPR does not apply to the processing of personal data by a natural person in the course of a purely personal or household activity and thus with no connection to a professional or commercial activity, but technologies serve not only private companies and public authorities, but also natural persons in collecting of personal data for various purposes, including illegal ones. On the other hand, the image capturing devices give people immense opportunities (including not only economical, but security and other aspects as well; therefore hereinafter called as “societal security”) and to be able  to enjoy them it is worth working on the adjustment of current legislation in order to find the right balance between the value given by the technologies in-topic (security) and the other value that is so much in-danger nowadays (privacy). The latter forms the research problem. So in this research the answer on how the current legal regulation could be adjusted in order to find that balance, is given. By comparing and indicating the problematic aspects of current national Latvian and Lithuanian regulation on the usage of technologies in-topic and privacy protection, the authors aim to prove that even though the regulation on protection of particular values could differ in different jurisdictions,  the image capturing devices still make a great contribution to societal security therefore their use cannot be denied. In order to adjust their impact on privacy, it is necessary to clearly categorize different subjects of the usage of image capturing devices and suggest legal rules for the prevention of privacy breaches.

The authors of the paper 'weight' advantages and threat to privacy caused by the usage of unmanned aerial vehicles (drones) and dashboard cameras. By analysing and comparing legal regulation of two gerographically, historically and culturally close countries (Latvia and Lithuania) they indicate differences of regulation of privacy, problematic aspects of their current national regulation on the usage of technologies in-topic and privacy protection and suggest possible solutions to the legal shortcomings found.