Congress has a warning for Chinese company DJI and its business partners: Don’t send in the drones or clones.
A series of legislative and political moves from the beltway could very well turn consumers’ and companies’ drone experience into thin air. Both houses in Congress want to apply a ban to DJI drones and alleged DJI clone makers.
House members on Tuesday claimed U.S.-based clone maker Anzu Robotics and Hong Kong-based Cogito Tech are fronts for China’s DJI and being used “as part of a concerted effort to thwart current and prospective restrictions on its operations imposed by the United States.”
The rhetoric comes weeks after the House introduced the Countering CCP Drones Act that would effectively ban DJI drones from flying the American skies for national security reasons to prevent sensitive, drone-gathered information from going to China.
The bill would also add DJI to a list compiled by the Federal Communications Commission under a 2019 federal law securing trusted communications networks.
DJI (Da Jiang Innovations), which commands 80% of the global drone market and is used by consumers and enterprises, is already on the Commerce Department’s blacklist because of the Chinese company’s close ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
In July, the Senate introduced the Countering CCP Drones and Supporting Drones for Law Enforcement Act that would ban future DJI models from connecting to U.S. communications infrastructure.
“Cheap Chinese drones are flooding the American market, costing American jobs, and putting our privacy and national security at risk,” said Sen. Jon Tester, D-Montana, one of the bill’s co-sponsors.
DJI officials strongly pushed back on what they call “inaccurate and unsubstantiated allegations” in a blog post. They said the bills stifle competition and innovation while perpetuating xenophobic narratives.
DJI insists drone users have the ability to opt out of a feature that lets DJI drones collect flight logs, photos or videos, and that operators can activate a Local Data Mode feature to disconnect the flight app from the internet.
The drone ban highlights escalating tensions between the federal government and DJI, underscoring increasingly bitter economic relations with China.
Earlier this year, President Biden signed into law a measure that would ban TikTok unless the Chinese parent company ByteDance divests. The U.S. also slapped a 25% tariff on Chinese drones, and several states have already banned drones from DJI and Autel, another Chinese drone company.
