blacklist

Lawmakers in Missouri have joined peers on a lengthening list of states looking to ban DJI drone use by public agencies. But they’re already getting emphatic opposition from the first responders who rely on the craft for their work.

Tech giant DJI has outlined the significant and immediate repercussions that denying access to their drones via the “Countering CCP Drones Act” will have on people across the United States.

When lethal legislation takes too long, attack with tariffs. That’s the logic of Washington lawmakers now calling on the Biden Administration to increase import fees on DJI drones, even as they continue pushing a draft law to prohibit operation of those same UAVs in the US.

The drive to ban DJI drones in the US has now crossed into the darkly comical – and ludicrously informed – with an effort reportedly afoot in Connecticut by state legislators to halt municipalities from operating the craft.

Scarcely a week goes by anymore without new efforts being announced to tighten bans on DJI drone operation in the US and this is one no exception, amid national and state activities to effectively and legally ground UAVs produced by the market leader.

Global drone leader DJI has come under increasingly intense pressure in the US, as successive federal and state measures banning its craft for official use have proliferated amid worsening relations with China – and accompanying security concerns. Though accusations by politicians that DJI UAVs leak data to Chinese authorities have never been substantiated – and flatly denied by the company – the blacklisting has reportedly undermined the firm’s former 70%-plus US market share down to what some estimates say is closer to half now. 

Tech giant DJI has provided a detailed response to legislation that seeks to ban its drones in the US. If passed, the “Countering CCP Drones Act” would prevent operators from buying the latest DJI drones — and may also potentially ground existing fleets, regardless of how operators use them — because it would prohibit DJI from operating on US communications infrastructure. The bill has already advanced to clear a Congress committee hearing.

Legislators in Arizona are lining up in the procession of authorities across the US looking to ban the use drones made by global leader DJI, citing the company’s China origins as motivating their security justifications.

A firebrand US House of Representatives legislator who usually rails against the size, cost, and over-reach of rights-crushing government is hailing the advance of her bill to deprive perhaps millions of state agency, business, and police, fire, first responder, and private users the ability to fly their DJI drones across the country. And there aren’t even “alternative facts” backing up the motives for the astonishingly repressive effort.

The world’s leading drone maker DJI has clearly had enough of the recurring accusations about the data security of its craft, and the attendant blacklists drawn up by US political leaders offering no substantiation of their claims. In response, the company has issued a rare clarification about the steps it takes to secure user information on its craft.

A funny thing happened the on the way to the conclusion of an otherwise convincing editorial about the self-defeating consequences of the recently passed anti-China American Security Drone Act of 2023 (ASDA): The author associated himself with a lobby supported by same DJI targeted by the law’s federal blacklisting, thus undermining the effectiveness of what had been a very compelling argument.

Will the portion of the National Defense Authorization Act containing a ban on drones made by China-based companies like DJI be the boon for US makers the law’s political backers claim? “A definite maybe” is what a reading of a new document detailing the measure published by longtime UAV expert and innovator Mark Bathrick offers readers.

Efforts to undermine the fortunes of the world’s leading drone maker DJI are about to bare a bumper crop fruit with legislative passage of a key defense bill that contains the National Security Drone Act of 2023, which blacklists aerial tech from China-based companies for use in official federal agency work. The wider package now awaits President Joe Biden’s signature.

If certain politicians in Australia are as intent as they appear to obtain permanent bans on all DJI drones used by government and police agencies, a new audit indicates they’ll be aided by a considerably smaller fleet of targeted UAVs involved than their anti-China peers in the US.

Pressure is beginning to build on government agencies and state-linked organizations in Australia to halt using DJI drones, with proponents of grounding craft produced by the China-based global leader pointing to blacklisting in the US in making their demands.

A new bipartisan push to ban US government agencies from operating Chinese-made drones, including DJI, is currently underway in the Senate. This time, it’s the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) that’s under the scanner for using more than a dozen drones that were manufactured in China.

It will come as no surprise to DroneDJ readers that political efforts have been afoot – and gaining momentum – to blacklist drones made by global leader DJI for the threats they allegedly pose of leaking user data to the spying eyes of officials in China. A new report offers an indication of just how steep – and expensive – that legislative push to sideline those UAVs across the US promises to be.

As their revered political hero famously phrased it, “there you go again.” A pair of Republican legislators has joined the conga line of officials in Washington striking tough positions against China with another bill seeking to broaden US bans on DJI drones – this one with potentially far-reaching consequences.

Is DJI really the ominous data threat to its customers – and even to US national security – that detractors claim, or might it instead be the victim of a broadening effort of sector rivals and allied politicians to undermine the company’s favored status among both private and enterprise drone buyers? The question has arisen anew with a report this week in US media ringing alarm bells about a purported “Chinese drone spy threat” the company’s craft pose.

The world’s leading drone maker, DJI, is among eight Chinese companies set to be added to official US government blacklists Thursday, according to a Financial Times report. The development risks compounding woes the company has experienced in the US over allegations of involvement in the repression of minority Uighurs by China’s government.