Germany's Bundesrat seeks to criminalize drone flights over power plants and airports
The upper house will submit a bill drafted by Hesse to the Bundestag. It also approved a reform allowing research institutes to pay top scientists more.
Archive image · Photo: Photo: Andreas Praefcke / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0 (cropped and resized)
Entering or staying in power plants, airports, railway stations or water treatment facilities without authorization, or flying a drone over them, would become a criminal offense under a bill Germany's upper house, the Bundesrat, voted on Friday to submit to the Bundestag. The initiative, put forward by the state of Hesse, would create an offense of "trespass endangering the public" covering critical facilities as defined in the KRITIS umbrella law. Prosecution would not require a formal complaint.
Hesse's Justice Minister Christian Heinz, a Christian Democrat, argued in September that protection of substations, airports and data centers must "start earlier." Such cases are often prosecuted only once damage has occurred. The federal government can now comment on the draft before the Bundestag takes it up. No deadlines apply.
The chamber also approved a reform of the Science Freedom Act, which eases a rule barring research institutes from paying staff more than comparable federal employees. Baden-Wuerttemberg's science minister, Petra Olschowski of the Greens, said 150 institutions would benefit. The additional pay may not come from public funds.