Thank you for the question.
In my own experience, I generally do landscape photography, so I'm not looking in anybody's backyard. Certainly when it comes to these sorts of questions, I think we have to ask, do we need additional rules? Is it justified?
You can currently get very high-resolution satellite images of every single square foot or square metre of Canada. Already, if I was curious about whether you had a pool or a hot tub in your backyard, I could publicly go and buy that information. Does the fact of using a different technology change that dramatically?
One thing that I am mindful of is that most of the drones that are out there.... You often hear about what will be under the Christmas tree. There are going to be millions of them under Christmas trees this Christmas. Most of them have wide-angle lenses, and they are intended for landscape—to take in the vista, the amazing view that you have from up there. In most cases, you are not actually close enough. I've flown near people. I've obviously flown near myself, and when you get up to a certain level, I am unrecognizable.
Privacy law is about personal information, identifiable individuals. Most drones or UAVs that you find in Consumer Reports for recreational purposes really don't have all that big an impact on privacy. It's more a perception than a reality.
However, I've certainly heard from people who feel that having a drone fly over their neighbourhood or their house is, in and of itself, an intrusion. I'm not sure there is a whole lot more that could be said about that.