Drones are ubiquitous in the United States. Chinese company DJI is the largest drone manufacturer in the world. Now some U.S. lawmakers are calling DJI "TikTok with wings" and want to place them on what's called the covered list, meaning the government would consider them to pose a risk to the national security of the United States. TPR’s Jerry Clayton spoke with Jack Daleo, the advanced aviation reporter for Flying Magazine about the potential legislation that could affect DJI drones.
This interview has been edited and condensed for time and clarity
Clayton: With 70% of the market share, chances are if you see someone flying a drone in their backyard or out in the park, it's a DJI drone. DJI makes more complex drones as well. Talk about some of those.
Daleo: They also do make drones for cases like agriculture, rescue services or law enforcement. And these will sometimes have thermal or other visual sensors to help agencies locate missing people, scan a map crime scenes, help farmers keep an eye on their crops, things like that.
Some estimates have actually put their market share in the public safety sector closer to 90%. And these drones are used pretty heavily by local law enforcement agencies around the U.S. Recently though, the government has pushed back on federal agencies using these drones.
So DJI has been blacklisted by the Department of Defense and the Department of Commerce. And you're also starting to see those bans pop up at the state level.
Clayton: This legislation, the Countering CCP Drones Act, would add DJI to the covered list. So if that happens, what would that mean for those who are currently operating DJI drones in the United States?
Daleo: The Countering CCP Drones Act is sponsored by two Congressional Republicans, Elise Stefanik and Mike Gallagher. It would add DJI to that FCC covered list. Essentially, that's a group of businesses that the U.S. government will not do business with. And it would prohibit the FCC from authorizing DJI drones for procurement, which would effectively ban them from use by government agencies or contractors.
But that list does not apply to individual hobbyists, commercial operations and things like that. It calls for DJI drones to be banned only from government use, not recreational.
That being said, this could be a sign of more restrictions to come. You know, as I mentioned, we're seeing more bans from state agencies. So it's possible that those bans get down to the level of, you know, your hobbyist or your independent drone user. And we could also see customers and even investors get spooked by these bans, which could sort of indirectly limit recreational or commercial use.
Clayton: So, from what you've seen, how legitimate are these concerns about DJI drones in general?
Daleo: Yeah, So there have been a lot of allegations thrown toward DJI and they basically all boil down to the use of drones for spying. So there have been several top U.S. officials and agencies that have come out and said that DJI drones are using cameras and sensors to collect data and transmit it back to China.
There have been claims that they're collecting information on sensitive military facilities, mapping out key U.S. infrastructure, and things like that.
But right now, there isn't any definitive evidence of that. I wouldn't say these concerns are completely unfounded because we do know that DJI is funded by state-backed investors, four of them — according to a report which it did not deny. That's something they denied for years, and it maybe raises some questions about their credibility. There's no kind of definitive proof that that finding has translated to government involvement or sharing data with the Chinese military, for example. But I do think some scrutiny would be healthy here since they weren't forthright.
There's also allegations that China is using these drones to aid in the genocide of Uyghur Muslims. Human rights groups have come out and said that those groups are being kept in what are essentially concentration camps and that DJI drones are being used to surveil them. They push back pretty hard against that one. And again, there's no evidence that it's happening, even though it's feasible that they could be used for that purpose.
