DJI claims its decision to let drones fly in dangerous areas is not political

DJI will no longer stop drones from flying over airports, wildfires, and the White House, passing the buck to US law enforcement to prevent some of the worst forms of drone misuse. Some are suggesting the curious timing of that decision is political, coming just days before President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration, weeks after the New Jersey drone hysteria, and days after a plane fighting the LA wildfires got taken down by a DJI drone. Some even suggest this is China firing back at the United States for orchestrating the TikTok ban, which feels like a stretch to me.

Either way, DJI is now reacting to the whole vibe with an official blog post that claims the timing is coincidental.

“We had planned to roll this update in the US months ago but delayed the implementation to ensure the update would work properly,” the company’s unsigned blog post reads.

It also claims, in bold letters, that “Politics does not drive safety decisions at DJI.”

“To suggest that this update is linked to the current political environment in the US is not only false but also dangerous,” DJI’s unnamed author writes.

While the post does contain a variety of additional details about what is and isn’t happening to the company’s geofencing system, it does not dispute that DJI has eliminated the feature that prevents the vast majority of US drone pilots, by default, from flying over airports, power plants, active wildfires, military bases, and government buildings like the White House, apparently without exception.

If politics didn’t drive that decision, what did? The blog post doesn’t quite say. While it promises to offer “the true reasons behind this update,” it continues to generically suggest that DJI has aligned itself with aviation regulators around “the principle of operator responsibility” and, on a lesser note, points out that its No Fly Zones created “missed opportunities, delayed operations, or unnecessary waiting times” for pilots.

“This was especially challenging for commercial operators, drone businesses — and most critically — public safety agencies performing lifesaving work, where delays are simply unacceptable,” DJI writes.

It’s true that DJI’s geofencing system was created voluntarily by DJI and isn’t mandated by US regulators. “The FAA does not require geofencing from drone manufacturers,” FAA spokesperson Ian Gregor told The Verge.

But does removing hard geofencing make us safer, and did it cost DJI anything to keep it in place? We’ve asked DJI the following questions:

• If politics did not drive this decision, what did?
• Were US regulators or representatives asking DJI to remove No Fly Zones?
• Was there a financial benefit to DJI for removing them, or an opportunity cost DJI would pay by maintaining them?
• Was DJI technologically unable to update its GEO system with official FAA data while maintaining No Fly Zones? 
• The blog post suggests that public safety agencies were experiencing unlocking delays — are there specific instances where DJI unlocking delays resulted in specific impacts to lifesaving work? 
• How does removing No Fly Zones make drones safer?

We’ll let you know how DJI responds.

Even if this decision has nothing to do with China, the company has very strong reasons to get on the radar of US regulators right now — it’s currently facing a total import ban of its drones and cameras in the United States, until or unless “an appropriate national security agency” publicly declares that its products are not an unacceptable national security risk.

Perhaps this move helps highlight how DJI voluntarily made its drones less of a national security risk by keeping them away from important facilities. Perhaps DJI leaders believe the US will only understand that once it takes the feature away.