U.S. think tank Heritage Foundation is calling on the Trump administration to impose sanctions on Chinese drone maker DJI because the data it collects could fall into the hands of the Chinese regime.
“Due to Chinese laws, Chinese corporations are unable to deny data requests from the Chinese government. Given the … data that is collected, the risk is that such information is going back to Beijing,” report co-author Lora Ries told The Epoch Times. She is a senior research fellow at the think tank.
Drones made by DJI, a private company headquartered in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen and the world’s biggest maker of commercial drones, are extremely popular in the United States.
More than 970 U.S. public safety agencies used drones made by either DJI or Yuneec, according to the report.
The U.S. Army, Pentagon, and Department of Interior have banned or grounded Chinese-made drones over spy risks.
Security Concerns
The Heritage Foundation highlighted DJI drones’ security flaws, as detailed in two recent studies by Paris-based IT security firm Synacktiv and Washington-based cybersecurity company River Loop Security.“This data is not relevant or necessary for drone flights and go beyond DJI privacy policy,” stated Synacktiv. It then warned that these data “can be used by intelligence agencies or malicious people to later track individuals or eavesdrop communications.”
Synacktiv also found that the DJI software could order a user’s phone to install a “forced update” and then execute whatever commands it wishes. Given that operating the DJI app requires granting it access to a device’s camera, geolocation, contacts, and other data, “the DJI...Chinese servers have almost full control over the user’s phone,” the firm concluded.
Moreover, Synacktiv found that even after users closed the app, it continued to run in the background, making network requests.
What’s more, River Loop found that the app’s terms of use agreement allowed DJI to share user data with the Chinese regime.
When installed, the DJI Mimo app requests users to give access to much of the phone’s data, such as location, SMS messages, and WiFi state.
“Those findings should worry any company or government agency using DJI technology, as well as policymakers working to secure critical infrastructure,” the Heritage Foundation concluded, referring to the two reports by Synacktiv and River Loop.
State and Local Governments
The Heritage Foundation said that though the U.S. federal government has recognized DJI’s threats, regional authorities are not prepared.“State and local agencies have smaller budgets,” Ries said, noting that DJI “has slashed its prices to basically elbow out any other competition.”
“This sensitive data collected by the Chinese-donated drones can be accessed by the drone manufacturer—and, thereby, the Chinese government,” according to the report.
The think tank said there could be a more nefarious motive behind DJI’s gesture: “Beijing has a history of imbedding surreptitious endeavors into seemingly good-natured or even charitable transactions by its government and/or Chinese corporations.”
Heritage also recommended that the U.S. Department of Justice and DHS inform state, city, and county agencies of the “threat and the potential repercussions from employing Chinese drones.”
The American Security Drone Act of 2019, a bill introduced in both chambers of Congress last year, would ban federal departments and agencies from buying any commercial off-the-shelf drone or small unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), either manufactured or assembled in countries deemed a national security threat to the United States, such as China and Iran.
The House in July passed a measure to ban federal agencies from buying and using Chinese-made drones as part of the annual defense spending bill, the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). Both chambers will reconcile any differences and finalize the NDAA in a conference later this year.
The think tank urged quick actions to address the threat since technologies now available on large drones used by the U.S. military, such as more advanced surveillance capability, could soon be found on smaller drones.
“The technology is advancing rapidly, and the capabilities currently found in large drones is now being miniaturized and will likely migrate to smaller drones in the near term, which will significantly broaden the threat,” Heritage concluded.