A method is provided. An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) is operated. A position of the UAV is determined while in flight, and a nonce is generated. A Merkel root is generated based at least in part on a timestamp and the position of the UAV. A current block is calculated based at least in part on a previous block, the Merkel root, and the nonce, and the current block, the timestamp, the nonce, the prior block, and the position of the UAV are transmitted.