What can you do about a drone peeking in your window?

We've been fretting for decades about Big Brother poking into our private lives, so it's ironic to discover that Big Brother could turn out to be everyday people like you and me.

Case in point: Conner Galway was having dinner on his patio and enjoying the view from his 37th-floor apartment in downtown Vancouver when he spotted something with blinking red and green lights flitting around near his building.

A closer look revealed a drone that Galway said was hovering only metres away from him.

“I didn’t want to be out there when I had no idea what this thing was, so we went back inside,” Galway told CTV News. “Forty-five minutes later it was still buzzing around going next to other apartments, different people, different patios.”

The quadcopter drone appeared to be equipped with a camera, he said. Galway shot his own footage of the apparent peeping drone, then reported it to police.

The cops apparently couldn't do anything without tracking down the operator and inspecting the drone to see what its camera may have captured.

"That's always going to be a challenge," Vancouver police spokesman Sgt. Randy Fincham told Yahoo Canada News.

And even if they did, the likelihood of any charges would be pretty remote unless the high-flying peepster caught someone undressed.

Because the reality is that while police, government agencies and even corporations are governed by privacy laws and regulations on the use of surveillance equipment, it's pretty much open season for you and me to indulge our curiosities.

“It certainly is uncharted territory," said Ryan Berger, a lawyer with Bull Housser and co-chair of the B.C. branch of the Canadian Bar Association's section on freedom of information and privacy.

[ Related: Drone seen flying in path of landing planes at Vancouver airport ]

The peeping drone phenomenon is part of what Berger calls the "democratization of surveillance."

"You don’t just have drones with cameras but you can plant cameras anywhere and have that fed directly to your iPhone, for instance, for a couple hundred dollars," he said.

"You can plant it in a public place, you can plant it in your workplace. We hear about nanny-cams all the time and putting it in childcare situations and eldercare situations. I think it’s going to proliferate because it’s accessible to people and there aren’t a lot of laws that regulate the use by private citizens.”

He said that the ubiquity of tiny cameras, whether on the ground or in the air, is pushing the definition of privacy.

“Privacy laws regulate what organizations can do with personal information or video or other surveillance they take of other people, or intrusions into their privacy," he said. "But there’s very little regulating of what an individual can or cannot do.”

Private drones seem to be everywhere, giving us unique aerial views of mountain scenery, even zooming right through fireworks displays.

Recently, though, there's been concern about drones getting too close to aircraft on the approaches to airports.

Transport Canada's web site discusses the regulations covering commercial use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), but it has nothing to say about the drone hobbyist.

In an email to Yahoo Canada News, department spokeswoman Roxanne Marchand said UAV operations are governed by the Canadian Aviation Regulations, which require anyone operating one to apply for a special flight operations certificate. However, that doesn't cover drones used for "relaxation or pleasure."

Private drones can be considered model aircraft, which makes them subject to rules forbidding activities that are hazardous to aviation safety. But rapid growth in drone ownership is forcing a re-evaluation, the department said.

A UAV working group involving officials and industry representatives was set up in 2010 to recommend changes to existing regulations.

"The department is working, in collaboration with key stakeholders and its international counterparts, to develop further regulations that will allow the safe integration of UAVs into civil airspace while maintaining the safety of those on the ground and other airspace users," Marchand said in her email.

But those rules won't address privacy.

Police can't do anything unless there's clear evidence of criminal activity connected to the drone's use, such as sexual voyeurism or harassment. But the issue is becoming a concern.

Fincham said Vancouver police received only three complaints regarding drone use from January to May, but since then there have been 10.

"Something is definitely shifting," he said.

“Drones are getting cheaper. The technology’s getting a bit more advanced, but also there appears to be more of them out there and people are more sensitive to these things being around.”

Two reports were connected to potential interference with aircraft heading into Vancouver International Airport and the others were alleged privacy intrusions. None resulted in police opening a criminal investigation, though Fincham said they'd like to talk to the drone pilots.

“Unfortunately there may be some individuals out there that don’t exercise good judgement or lack common sense that are going to use drones for an illegal purpose...that’s going to have a negative impact on everybody," he said.

Drone retailers have no obligation to advise customers on what's OK.

"We sell them with the intent for them to be used recreationally," Elliott Chun, communications manager for the Future Shop electronics chain, told Yahoo Canada News. "No matter what we're selling, be it in-store or online, we expect our customers will use good judgment."

But Chun said the company, a subsidiary of Best Buy, will be watching the issue as sales of drones grows. Future Shop went from one model in 2012 to a dozen, ranging in price from $120 to $430.

The owner of Canada Drones, one of the country's biggest online retailers of drone technology, said the hobby community is more worried about safety than privacy.

"We don't believe there's a big privacy concern as big as you guys want to raise it," Dany Thivierge said from Toronto.

"If you've seen them or heard them, they're quite noisy. Unless it's going to peek inside the windows, you will notice them."

[ Related: Drones taking off as a hobby in Saskatchewan ]

But he also noted that now that drones have become fairly easy to fly, models that have a camera or the ability to mount one are a major selling point.

"They're doing photography already and they want to take it to the next level where they want that shot from the sky," said Thivierge, who says he sells about 40 drones every couple of weeks.

Thivierge advises buyers not to fly their drones above crowds and points out that his main product line, DJI, includes software that prevents the drone from flying near airports. If the operator persists, the unit will land, he said.

So where does all this leave you and me and our right not to be spied on by eyes in the sky?

“Right now there’s not a whole lot that an individual can do to prevent this from happening," said Berger.

"There’s still a big question in the law as to where do our privacy rights begin and end and what are our privacy rights in a public place, and what are public places?”

Right now, a drone flying past your window is little different from someone looking in while walking by on the sidewalk. That applies even if your window is on the 37th floor. Even if a drone is recording – as long as you're not naked – "if it’s for your [the operator's] own personal use, the laws as we have them in Canada, the privacy laws anyway, wouldn’t apply.”

So far there's no case law around this simply because there haven't been any high-stakes lawsuits, said Berger. But the issue of private surveillance, whether it's drones or hidden cameras, is being debated in the legal community.

"I think as a society, in all our space, whether it’s airspace or cyberspace, we’re having a discussion as a society about our privacy rights," he said.

Berger said when he heard about Galway's encounter "I expected some people to call for legislation and regulation so that people can’t do this anymore.

"I think that will be the initial reaction. If that’s what happens, then it will only be left to the state to be able to do it, and you will have Big Brother 1984-style. I think some people may argue there should be some ability for the public to still have some ability to play in that field.”