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JoeMerchant [soylentnews.org] writes:

FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr has called for the addition of DJI drones to the FCC Covered List, which could prevent the company from selling its products in the United States. [petapixel.com]

In a letter published to the FCC official website, Carr accuses the Shenzhen-based drone company of collecting “vast amounts” of sensitive data and effectively calls the drones Chinese surveillance.

...

Carr says that one former Pentagon official has even said that the government agency knew — written as a statement of fact — that much of that information was being sent back to China from DJI drones.

“DJI’s collection of vast troves of sensitive data is especially troubling given that China’s National Intelligence Law grants the Chinese government the power to compel DJI to assist it in espionage activities,” Carr says.

DJI was placed on the Commerce Department’s Entity List last year, colloquially called the “economic blacklist.” Its placement there made it so that American companies could not export parts to DJI. Companies on the blacklist would theoretically find it harder to sell products in the United States, but DJI does not appear to have suffered this problem.

Carr says that many of the concerns he has are linked to DJI’s widespread use by various state and local public safety and law enforcement agencies. There are also reports that the U.S. Secret Service and the FBI also use DJI drones, which Carr says makes it even more important that a full review of DJI is conducted to address potential national security threats.

Carr says that evidence against DJI has been mounting for years, specifically citing eight examples. The earliest example is from a 2017 bulletin from the Department of Homeland Security that found DJI was likely sending sensitive infrastructure and law enforcement data to China. The most recent example is a 2021 Department of Defense statement that said the agency is convinced that DJI systems pose a threat to national security.

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He's not wrong, but speaking as an ex-employer of a US based drone development company in 2010-2012, this problem could have been significantly mitigated.by encouraging domestic development instead of stifling it back then.

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