Less than a third of holiday drones sold have been registered according to FAA

In December, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced that all drone owners will have to register them by February 19th.

Earlier this week, we even reminded you so that you didn’t miss out on getting your $5 registration fee reimbursed.

It seems, however, that many drone owners aren’t taking this all that seriously.

Overlooking those that owned drones prior, the FAA predicted that over a million unmanned aerial vehicles would be sold this holiday season.

Currently only 295,000 of those drone owners have registered with the government, less than 30 percent of the predicted holiday sales alone.

Of course, the FAA requirements only mandate that you register yourself, rather than the aircraft, so there could be slight inaccuracies assuming that some owners have multiple drones.

For those that haven’t registered, you should know that the penalties are quite steep and registration is easy (you can even do it online).

Failure to register an aircraft may result in regulatory and criminal sanctions. The FAA may assess civil penalties up to $27,500. Criminal penalties include fines of up to $250,000 and/or imprisonment for up to three years.

So, get off your ass and get that drone registered already, will ya?

➤ Americans aren’t registering the drones they got for Christmas [Quartz]