DJI ran afoul of the 2017 AWS hole that thousands of American companies got shit for? Kudos that they bothered trying to send out privacy notices because a lot of companies didn’t…
This particular hole, in my opinion, is the fault of AWS (and in part, lazy devs), not companies. And despite the timing on this article which’ll suit clicks super well, should in no way play into the anti-CCP bill.
Newbie, so not up to speed with thr intricacies of this, but as I understand it, the problem is that DJI drones, which are peerless for performsnce, dophistication, and vfm, have flight recording abilities that the US govt. doesn’t trust. Surely there must be some means by which these features can be switched off, isolated, which would remove the need for the ban. A hobby drone does not really need to gather this information, it’s not a civil airliner…
You’ve missed the bit about the US domestic production being grossly inferior to DJI, being squeezed out due to poor sales and not doing what they do very well.
Far easier to ban all the competition and give their domestic production a chance to catch up.
From what I can gather, all hobby drone production everywhere is inferior to DJI’s, the only question being how grossly so. This is counter-intuitive, and kudos to the Chinese who have developed these drones (they also produce some absolute carp). One might have expected other nations to produce good quality product, Japan in particular being known for electronic expertise, and presumably more acceptable to the Americans. There does seem to be a bit of a ‘reds under the beds’ feel to this bill which looks like a knee-jerk political reaction. but I am not sure that it is a result of lobbying from the US drone industry. Apparently DJI has 58% of the US hobby market, despite being relatively pricey, and I’d bet that the Chinese share when you include the cheapo carp products from the 'zon or Temu is more like 80%
As I say, I’m a newbie at the bottom of a learning curve, only a few weeks since I decided I needed to get out more in my dotage and a drone would be a fun way to go about it, but I do not know of any US producers apart from a company in Texas selling rebranded DJI drones, and in fact only one UK one, Dronetech. The Chinese have 70% of the world market for all civilian drones.
I would assume, but don’t really know because of the nature ot that particular beast, that military drone production is less Sino-based as a global whole, and that the US, UK, and others make their own; there would be a serious security question over buying in from China. The Ukraine is sourcing from countries that wouldn’t have been the first that came to my mind, such as Turkey and Iran, but TTBOMK neither of those has expertise that has translated to their domestic or hobby markets.
The question of whether the DJI flight recording ability compromises US securtiy or privacy laws is thorny, and revolves around whether or not it has a ‘phone home’ capacity. Have the CIA or Homeland Security taken one apart and looked at it, and did they understand it? I can see why the Americans would be suspicious of it, the Chinese are tricksy little beggars… but doesn’t DJI software prevent flying over restricted zones anyway, and wouldn’t that nullify any security objections?
If I buy a drone, here or in the US or anywhere else for that matter, it is very difficult to buy any drone that is not a Chinese one. Probably fair to say that none of my local retail outlets (superstores, electronics stores, hobby shops, &c) have anything eles.
And China.
I’m not sure thorny is the right word, that’s perhaps a little understating it 
The amount of data capture by DJI drones, and that data sent directly to China, has been widely documented over the years.
Not any more. It used to (for years, too), but DJI have since removed all geofence restrictions so you can fly anywhere.
They probably don’t need to, the community has been reverse engineering DJI drones and sharing the results publicly since the dawn of time 
It’s really hard to buy anything electronic that doesn’t contain Chinese-made components.
This bill aims to revoke all FCC authorizations for existing and future DJI drones. For those unaware, the FCC issues approvals for devices that transmit radio frequencies, so revoking DJI’s approval would mean these drones could not legally transmit radio frequencies.
Source: Proposed DJI Ban For EVERYONE, Philly Pilot Back In Court
If the existing authorisations are revoked, it means you can’t legally fly a single DJI drone in the USA.
Sales of dark green Plastidip are gonna go through the roof
Not just DJI drones though. FCC revocation would apply to all DJI products that use radio or wifi. Cameras and microphones would also come under this ban. 
They would indeed 
The Action and Pocket for example, all have WiFi / Bluetooth built in.
The CrystalSky’s would all fall foul too, as would the AeroScope’s and pretty much everything else DJI have ever made in the last ten years or more 
We can also bundle all DJI FPV kit in to this ban too.
All goggles and O3-units, the Docks they use for remote deployment, Agras crop spraying systems, FlyCart delivery drones, the Robomaster kits, Portable power banks, all the high end Ronin camera kit, the list is endless 
Congressman Scott stated that it “removed communist China from our Supply Chain”
What fecking planet is he on? Chinese imports into the United States are over $500 billion annually. I take it he will be throwing away his mobile phone and the vast majority of electrical devices that are either made in China or have Chinese components. An utter arse wipe! 
Mads tech view / opinion on this, not a lot we don’t know all ready but an easy to understand short video,
Agreed. Smacks of the old red-baiting days of senator Joe McCarthy back in the 1950’s & protectionism of US companies who can’t make consumer, camera drones at neither a competitive quality nor price.
Good points. But as for US complaints about DJI sending information to foreign powers? I had it on good authority from my (now late) sister who’d lived in Canada since the 1950’s that when her husband switched from the Canadian Airforce to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in the 1970’s, undergoing a security check, he was grilled about the activities of his wife’s younger brother (Me)! Only thing I can think of that put me in the frame of MI5 was a photo in the local paper of me chairing a public meeting against youth unemployment, when unemployment hit 1 million for the first time since the 1930’s, barely a year after leaving school in 1963, but threatened with losing my job due to the economic downturn & freezing winter of that year. Bizzarely after the recession of 2008/9 I really was made redundant! But it seems if one pokes one’s head too far above the parapet to complain, beware the security services taking note & passing it on to foreign countries if they request it!
The State Department has a long memory. Back in the late 80s I planned a trip to the US and Canada, where my big sister ad bil live, and had to cancel the US leg when ai was refused a visa )and I don’t mean the credit card). Reason being that they were aware that I had been present at the 1968 demonstation against the Vietnam War outside the US embassy in Grosbenor Square. This, as is well known, was a fairly violent affair, and I’m no hero; you could find me hiding at the back. I was s 6th-form schoolkid at the time.
The bus up to London & back was organised by Cardiff University Students’ Union, and I’d guess that someone in that organisation passed names to the Americans. I was on the CIA’s list of communist sympathisers, and I certainly wasn’t that, though I am of a generally small s socialist bent…
I’m a little concerned that the UK follows as it has a habit of doing that.
Let’s hope it don’t 
Nah, I don’t think U.K. politicians are as narrow minded, inward looking cretins.
Do you not watch TV John
I do Chris, but I think most of our politicians are a bit more outward looking than the American equivalent. I don’t believe for one second that they’d ban DJI drones, cameras and microphones from being sold, here in the U.K.