Does DJI Really Need a High-Risk Airspace Security Threat? A Tweet from Schulman about the Los Angeles Firefighter’s Dilemma
The greatest distrust of drones in US history, as well as an incident of a drone operator helping the LA fire department, is confusingly causing DJI to take out its strong geofence. DJI will no longer enforce “No-Fly Zones,” instead only offering a dismissible warning — meaning only common sense, empathy, and the fear of getting caught by authorities will prevent people from flying where they shouldn’t.
The changes successfully implemented in the E.U. last year were the reason why this update has been in development for some time. According to the changes last year, no-fly zones still exist around UK airports.
In a blog post, DJI characterizes this as “placing control back in the hands of the drone operators.” DJI suggests that technologies like Remote ID, which publicly broadcasts the location of a drone and their operator during flight, are “providing authorities with the tools needed to enforce existing rules,” DJI global policy head Adam Welsh tells The Verge.
Interesting timing: Ten years almost to the day after a DJI drone infamously crash-lands on the White House lawn, DJI has removed the built-in geofencing feature that automatically impedes such an incident, replacing it with warnings that the user can choose to ignore.
But it turns out the DJI drone that damaged a Super Scooper airplane fighting the Los Angeles wildfires was a sub-250-gram model that may not require Remote ID to operate, and the FBI expects it will have to “work backwards through investigative means” to figure out who flew it there.
Brendan Schulman, who was the head of global policy for DJI, does not think this is a good move. Here are a few choice phrases he’s posted to X:
It is a shift in drone safety strategy that will have a massive impact on drone pilots who are less aware of airspace restrictions and high risk areas.
It’s thought that this move helps highlight how DJI made its drones less of a national security danger by keeping them away from important facilities. Perhaps DJI leaders believe the US will only understand that once it takes the feature away.
Yes, this GEO update applies to all locations in the U.S and aligns with the FAA’s Remote ID objectives. With this update, prior DJI geofencing datasets have been replaced to display official FAA data. The areas previously referred to as restricted zones will now be described as enhanced warning zones.
3) Did DJI make this decision in consultation with or by direction of the US government or any specific government bodies, agencies, or representatives? What if so? If not, why not?
This GEO update aligns with the principle advanced by aviation regulators around the globe — including the FAA — that the operator is responsible for complying with rules.
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.
We delayed the implementation of the update in the US because we wanted to make sure it would work.
The author of the update says that it is false and dangerous to suggest that the update is related to the current political environment in the US.
What happened if politics did not drive that decision? The post isn’t quite saying. 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.
The challenge was especially challenging for commercial operators, drone businesses and most critical public safety agencies, where delays were simply unacceptable.
