Re: 2/3, why not just legislate on what data can be sent abroad, thereby rendering DJI ineligible to operate in the US market, rather than adding them to a ban list? And preferably go one further and enact more stringent data privacy protections _no matter the drone manufacturer_.
I think it's really telling that Congress has no appetite to tackle part of the root issue (that US data privacy laws don't go far enough because it might "hurt" domestic companies who indiscriminately vacuum up user data) and instead just takes the easy route. There have been too many hacks and leaks in recent years to trust even "friendly" companies.
DJI, in particular has a bunch of phone-home kill switch stuff built in. The FAA mandated a lot of it, and now I think they realize that, in practice, that means they're mandating that the Chinese military has indirect control over drones operated by Americans on US soil.
I think it'd be better to ban remote kill switches and instead mandate GIS databases that warn you if you're violating airspace restrictions (for drones over a certain size, where this isn't adding a bunch of complexity).
Shielding domestic drone manufacturers from international competition essentially guarantees that we'll fall behind China. That will cause a national security issue worse than the current situation.
Sometimes I wonder if the regulators are intentionally screwing the US over, or if it's just that the federal government has become unable to coordinate the actions of its own agencies.
edit: The sibling comments are great examples of why we need strong privacy laws. If it was illegal for DJI to exfiltrate the data the drones gather back to their manufacturers, then those classes of national security issues would take care of themselves, and the rules would solve the problem for all industries, not just this one company.
Federal law supercedes non-existent privacy law in the US. I agree there should be privacy regulations to prevent drone intrusion, but that's up to the FAA to update the regulations around airspace use.
1.) DJI offers many drones related to infrastructure mapping and maintenance, as well as agricultural tasks. From a national security perspective, it is a non-trivial threat vector for a Chinese company to not only have intimate knowledge of US infrastructure by being their drone supplier, but also by becoming a dependency of US infrastructure. In the event of a war, all of the drones could be grounded or used for nefarious purposes.
2.) When it comes to protectionism, I'm generally against it, but I have different thoughts when it comes to China. They have banned Uber, Google, YouTube, Facebook, Amazon, etc, and just make their own versions of it. Then they have absolutely no respect for international laws when it comes to IP. They don't compete economically according to the same rules as everyone else, and don't deserve to be treated the same way.
3.) I have 2 DJI drones. The fact that there is no mention of compensation in this legislature is absurd. Fortunately, I don't rely on these for my business, but imagine if you were a filmmaker, tree trimmer, real estate agent, etc, who had bought many drones for your business. Not only are you grounding the tools that they've already come to depend on, but there isn't an existing viable alternative on the market for many of these tasks.
Well, if it ridiculously easy to work around, they will probably get flak even earlier, harder, and be legislated to the ground more certainly than otherwise.
I spoke with Frank Wang on a few meetups in Shenzhen many years ago, back when DJI was still kind of a garage company.
Frank had big, nebulous ideas how he will be "engaging the civil society," "stakeholder negotiations," "industry wide self-governance body" blah blah blah to safeguard DJI from troubles.
I told him hiring lobbyists, and talking to officials, or even just making buzz about potential problems is a bad, bad idea.
Lawmakers can't ban things they don't know they can ban... unless you give them an idea.
Same thing with public reaction. People don't get outraged if they don't know why they should be.
In the end it came to that exact outcome, and drones are now in the process of being legislated to the ground, and effectively becoming unflyable by regular people without few kilograms of permits, and licenses.
He wanted to pride DJI on how government compliant, and safe his drones are, but instead just got them banned around every major city.
>I suspect that within a few years, it won't be able to fly a compliant drone in the US without having your flight appear online.
I don't think I have a problem with this. However, the transmitter of that ID can't be that powerful as it's just on a drone. There would need to be a global network of receivers to make this a viable thing to constantly be reading every single drone everywhere all the time.
Instead, I just see it as some form of LEO seeing a drone in a restricted space, pulling out their device to get an ID from said drone, enter some form of ticket into some sort of database, drone owner receives warning/fine/etc. I'm okay with all of that. Your drone is already recording GPS info, so if you feel the LEO was wrong, you can submit your GPS info with the time of the "offense" to support your claim it wasn't an illegal flight. What could possibly go wrong? /s
Off-topic: I bought a drone in the US, during a recent visit. I live in Italy. I cannot use my drone here because of some BS from the drone manufacturer.
I hate how drone companies essentially dictate many things that don't make any sense, such as the above one.
I wish there were an open-source firmware, or something, to allow us to use them more freely.
If they are concerned about 300 families from passengers from a stricken airliner coming after them for billions, then yes, yes it is.
If they are concerned about the FAA restricting drone use altogether, then yes. (they've already required drones be registered. If they're aircraft that cant be operated safely then FAA can ground them all, and much of the world follows our FAA's rulings)
A civilian UAS & manned aircraft collision resulting in loss of life is statistically inevitable. How DJI fares in court by showing it exhausted all means to prevent their products from doing harm when the unfortunate does occur, is something they can be proactive with.
One of the largest drone manufacturers globally and backed by the Chinese government [0] and several Red Families [1]
> why is it being banned
It is very closely connected with Chinese government stakeholders, with worries around privacy and data retention [2].
There is also some lobbying by Skydio and Andruil [3][4].
They are also breaking sanctions against Russia with Russian forces using their drones [5][6] (though the Ukrainians are using them as well), as well as sanctions around Xinjiang [7].
> why should the general public care about this
They are a popular low cost drone option. It might also spark a rise in domestic drone vendors - especially in the industrial and defense space [8].
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Also, can we please have another source. DroneDJ is a DJI specific blog and as such is biased in favor of DJI.
For what it's worth, I have a pilot's license and also fly a quadcopter.
A big part of the issue is the separation of powers and who exactly has the right to regulate model aircraft. Congress explicitly and deliberately precluded the FAA from regulating model aircraft. A separate question is whether or not, given their proliferation, the new breed of model aircraft should be regulated. Given existing laws, that's a job for congress to decide.
As an aside: People wanting to do dumb things, will do dumb things. You don't need to create new sweeping regulation to punish people from doing dumb things either. Most cities and states have laws preventing people from deliberately invading others' privacy, or acting recklessly. Many of the concerns levied against drones are either already addressed or are impossible to regulate against. I'm often reminded of a news reporter on 9/11 that was asking the aviation expert on air with her how the planes were able to get into restricted airspace.
DJI also sends data to US GOVT agencies as required by law. To label any company "bad" simply because of their compliance to law is a rather self-limiting view.
1) Other manufacturers don't have restrictive geofencing like DJI - it's not a regulatory issue, but liability.
2) DJI's flight restrictions are determined by DJI, not the FAA. They don't align with each other, so you end up having to keep track of and comply with two airspace systems.
That's why I abandoned DJI for my business use. I wasn't able to take off to cover an event at an airport for which I had FAA approval. DJI gave their approval... but the code didn't work, and it required that I have Internet access on the phone I was using to fly to boot.
One key take away is that all DIY drones will be illegal to fly the way people use drones today if the proposed FAA Remote ID rules goes into effect -- I think this is excessive regulatory overreach. The DJI post is excellent. Further reading here: https://fpvfc.org/remote-id-talking-points
> That... is exactly the subject matter of the article.
That's why I brought it up. My point is that it piloting drones should be carefully regulated, and violations harshly punished, but it should not be unnecessarily difficult to fly legally (as it lamentably appears to be).
Long ago I bought a DJI mavic. I generally don't use apps for any stuff.
I couldn't fly it with the joystick controller that came with it. It said "see app" or something on the controller. It was really annoying but I sent it back.
A cursory web search said it was sending all kinds of location/flight information/etc back to dji continuously.
I thought there would be outrage, but not much.
I think it is sort of annoying that they are going after DJI specifically.
I think congress should be going after device/app privacy itself for all devices/apps in a more fundamental way.
I think it's really telling that Congress has no appetite to tackle part of the root issue (that US data privacy laws don't go far enough because it might "hurt" domestic companies who indiscriminately vacuum up user data) and instead just takes the easy route. There have been too many hacks and leaks in recent years to trust even "friendly" companies.
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