DJI battles US fears with Government Edition drones

US authorities have long accused DJI drones of being a security risk

Reading Time:2 minutes

This DJI Matrice 100 drone is one of the company’s enterprise models. (Picture: Paul Faith/Bloomberg)

Published: 9:16pm, 27 Jun 2019Updated: 9:08am, 20 Sep 2019

This article originally appeared on ABACUS

DJI’s latest release isn’t a drone or an action camera. It’s a way for governments to use their drones securely, without that data going anywhere else -- even to DJI.

The story of drone pioneer DJI

Which governments, you might wonder? DJI’s YouTube clip introducing Government Edition isn’t exactly subtle with its choice of setting:

DJI has been battling accusations that the Chinese company poses a security risk for Americans using their drones. Last week, DJI came under fire from two US senators over alleged security risks. A month earlier, the US Department of Homeland Security issued a warning about security risks associated with Chinese drones.

The company also denied that it automatically sends data to China, and promises to assemble some of the enterprise drones used by state agencies on US soil.

Government Edition is the latest step. But this new solution isn’t entirely new: DJI introduced what is effectively an “Airplane Mode for drones” in 2017. It’s called Local Data Mode, and it prevents the DJI Pilot app used for enterprise drones from transferring data to third parties or to DJI.

Check out DJI Mavic Pro on Amazon

The difference is that in Government Edition this feature is permanently switched on, while in the regular versions one could disable it by entering a password.