Although UAS operations within authorities and organizations with security tasks (BOS) in Germany are subject to regulatory relief, relevant laws, official guidelines, and contractual obligations must, of course, be taken into account. This is particularly true in information security. To facilitate this, the UAV DACH - Association for Unmanned Aviation, in collaboration with the Federal Office for Information Security (BSI), has developed an IT basic protection profile for authoritie’s UAS use.

Given the increasing use of drones, the operational safety of unmanned aerial vehicles is becoming increasingly important. This is especially true when it comes to the exchange of information between the UAS in the air and the controlling or monitoring personnel on the ground. Typically, the recommendations of the Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) serve as guidelines and are incorporated into the security concepts of BOS units. However, the existing IT basic protection profiles from the BSI did not fully reflect the specificities of UAS operations.

Structured elaboration

This provided a compelling reason for the Competence Group „IT Safety & Security“ in UAV DACH to take action. The aim of the experts from the European Association for Unmanned Aviation is to create a structured outline of IT basic protection profiles for the operational categories „open“, „specific“, and „certified“, facilitating the standardized derivation of individual security concepts for UAS operations in accordance with BSI standards. Since drone operations in authorities and organizations with security tasks have specific features, a dedicated BOS version was developed based on the basic protection profile for the open operational category, published in winter 2024.

In the „IT-Grundschutz Profile for the Operation of Uncrewed Aircraft Systems in …