Boosting Drone Markets and Strengthening

Drone-Related Safety for Consumers

- Consumer counseling for drones went up to 70.3 percent, but one

out of four had drone-related problems. Safety is a priority -

84 percent of drone users use drones for their hobbies or leisure time. The use of drones has spread rapidly at home and abroad. However, drone-related counseling among consumers is on the rise which needs to be addressed.

The Korea Consumer Agency(President Han, Kyeon-pyo)

has looked into the awareness of drones from consumers.

It has analyzed injury-related accidents as well as problems of drones and presented polices for consumer

-oriented drone markets.

□Drone-related consumer counseling increased to

70.3 percent year-on-year

Over the past two years, 100 cases of consumer counseling for drones have been reported to 1372 Consumer Consulting Center, which went up to 70.3 percent compared to 63 cases last year.

Quality-related problems accounted for 50 cases(50%), followed by 18 cases(18.0%) of complaints to customer service and 6 cases(6.0%) of withdrawal of contract. 32 reports on quality issues have been received, which increased up to 77.8 percent compared to last year(18 cases).

□One out of four had problems with drones

A survey of 1,500 adults living in the nation asked about the awareness of drones showed that 30.5 percent of them said they were concerned about malfunction. In particular, among 463 consumers who have used drones,

one out of four(115, 24.8%) had problems including malfunction(59.1%) and product defect(46.1%).

Also, one out of five(95, 20.5%) experienced injury-related accidents and 38.9 percent of users had accidents during outside activities in the park.

□Consumers feel fear of using drones

39.7 percent of respondents said they feel fear for drone-related accidents. For example, 67 percent of them said they are afraid of wings, followed by propellers motors and engines(49.8%) and batteries and chargers(46.2%).

On the other hand, most of the consumers(40.5%) feel fear for drones in the arenas and racing places, followed by 31.9 percent in outdoor experience centers and education places and 28.2 percent in indoor experience centers and education places respectively.

□Monitoring and strengthening the safety of drones matter

32.5 percent said that boosting the drone market requires monitoring and preparing for safety ratings for drones, followed by strengthening the national standard certification for drones and monitoring(24.9%), special insurance for drones preparing for damage, loss, injury and safety accidents(17.7%) and strengthening the consumer information in comparison or selection for drones(16.1%).

The KAC has called for improving quality control and managing safety of related facilities, which will reflected in the quality and safety-related standardization process through COSD. It will also propose strengthening the rights and interests of consumers to related government departments to lay the foundation for policy in the field of new technologies.