Leveraging Knowledge to Manage Your Data Risks
Next week, the House of Representatives China Committee plans to introduce a bill that would ban the purchase of Chinese-made drones by the U.S. government. This bill is an effort to revamp the prior push for this ban that was derailed by lobbying efforts.
The American Security Drone Act, as it is coined, would not…
This week, U.S. Senators Marco Rubio, Rick Scott, and Tom Cotton (as well as U.S. House of Representatives member Elise Stefanik, who introduced parallel legislation) introduced the Countering CCP Drones Act in an effort to add DJI, a Chinese technology company, to the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) “Covered List.” The “Covered List” identifies telecommunication equipment…
This week, China-based DJI, the drone industry’s leading manufacturer of drones, issued a public statement regarding the recent reports released by cybersecurity researchers (neither Synacktiv nor GRIMM) about the security of its drones’ control app.
In two reports, the researchers claimed that an app on Google’s Android operating system that powers DJI drones collects large…
Last week, the U.S. Interior Department (the Department) grounded its fleet of over 800 DJI Mavic Pro drones, citing potential cybersecurity risks and the desire to support U.S. drone production. This suggests that the Department is at least in part concerned with the manufacture of the DJI drones in China. While Interior Secretary David Bernhardt…
This week, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced more details about its new recreational drone flyer test, which will be an opportunity to educate recreational flyers about the rules of flying a drone in national airspace. An FAA law passed in 2018 requires recreational drone flyers to pass an online aeronautical knowledge and safety test,…
Over only a few years’ time, Washington State Patrol (the Patrol) has built a drone fleet of 111 drones. The Patrol says that it uses these small drones for crash investigations and fatality scenes, and not for surveillance purposes. Detective Sergeant Clint Thomas said that roughly 100 state troopers and detective across the state are…
The U.S. Interior Department (the Interior) authorized government officials to buy drones from DJI Technology (DJI) after a previous warning that the company may act as a channel for Chinese government espionage. However, Mark Bathrick, Director of the Office of Aviation Services, said, “[This authorization is] a very narrow, very specific, very limited authorization. We’re…
DJI, a supplier of approximately 70 percent of all drones in the United States, announced this week that it will begin manufacturing some of its products in the U.S. DJI plans to repurpose a warehouse in Cerritos, California to assemble a new version of a drone that has been popular among federal and local government…
Several industry leaders and stakeholders in the unmanned aircraft system (UAS or drone) industry have provided feedback on the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) proposed rules for flying drones at night and over people, as well as for drone safety and security issues.
The Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI) argued in its comments that…
Last week, reports of “drone activity” temporarily halted flights at the Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) had to briefly hold arrivals due to “reports of drone activity north of the airport earlier that evening.” The airport had to coordinate with the FAA and federal law enforcement authorities to…
