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The U.S. Could Ban Chinese-Made Drones Used By Police Departments (msn.com) 76

Posted by EditorDavid from the fly-over-country dept.
Tuesday the White House faces a deadline to decide "whether Chinese drone maker DJI Technologies poses a national security threat," reports Bloomberg. But their article notes it's "a decision with the potential to ground thousands of machines deployed by police and fire departments across the US."

One person making the case against the drones is Mike Nathe, a North Dakota Republican state representative described by the Post as "at the forefront of a nationwide campaign sounding alarms about the Made-in-China aircraft." Nathe tells them that "People do not realize the security issue with these drones, the amount of information that's being funneled back to China on a daily basis." The president already signed anexecutive orderin June targeting "foreign control or exploitation" of America's drone supply chain. That came after Congress mandated a review to determine whether DJI deserves inclusion in a federal register of companies believed to endanger national security. If DJI doesn't get a clean bill of health for Christmas, it could join Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. and ZTE Corp.on that Federal Communications Commission list. The designation would give the Trump administration authority to prevent new domestic sales or even impose a flight ban, affecting public agencies from New York to North Dakota to Nevada...

The fleet used by public safety agencies nationwide exceeds about 25,000 aircraft, said Chris Fink, founder of Unmanned Vehicle Technologies LLC, a Fayetteville, Arkansas-based firm that advises law-enforcement clients. The overwhelming majority of those drones — called uncrewed aerial vehicles, or UAVs, in industry parlance — comes from China, said Jon Beal, president of theLaw Enforcement Drone Association, a training and advocacy group that counts DJI and some US competitors as corporate sponsors...

Currently, at least half a dozen states havetargeted DJIand other Chinese-manufactured drones, including restrictions in Arkansas, Mississippi and Tennessee. A Nevada law prohibiting public agencies from using Chinese drones took effect in January... Legislators also took up the cause in Connecticut, which passed a law this year preventing public offices from using Chinese drones. Supporters said they're worried about these eyes in the skies being used for spying. "We're kind of sitting ducks," said Bob Duff, the Democratic majority leader in the state senate who promoted the legislation. "They are designed to infiltrate systems even when the users don't think that they will."
One North Dakota sheriff's department complains U.S.-made drones are "at least double and triple the price out of the gate," according to the article, which adds that public safety officials "say it's difficult to find domestic alternatives that match DJI in price and performance."

And DJI "wants an extension on the security review," according to the article, "saying Tuesday is too soon to make a conclusion."
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The U.S. Could Ban Chinese-Made Drones Used By Police Departments More

The U.S. Could Ban Chinese-Made Drones Used By Police Departments

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  • Fear of China (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    The abject fear of China that the trump administration displays is a reflection of the realization of their handlers that the US has already lost.

    The strategy is obviously to pacify China by giving them everything but the North American continent and hope they are satisfied.

    The Chinese must love the "US" elite class.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Mr. Dollar Ton ( 5495648 )

      Well, you'd be afraid too if all you can do in response to China taking over in every possible aspect is taxes, tariffs and bans that only kill what's left of your ability to compete, all the while your best pals in business try to bribe you with the profits they make off China products.

    • Re:Fear of China (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ArchieBunker ( 132337 ) on Monday December 22, 2025 @12:37AM (#65873987)

      Modern conservatism falls apart when you don't have a constant boogey man.

      China
      Illegal Immigrants
      Trans people
      Gay people
      Antifa
      Woke

      Did I miss anything? Russia is always strangely absent.

      • Re:Fear of China (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Mr. Dollar Ton ( 5495648 ) on Monday December 22, 2025 @12:47AM (#65873991)

        Russia supplies the liquidity, per Don Jr's testimony

      • Conservatism doesn't require a boogeyman. People just live their lives until someone wants to make a stupid change to the rules.

        You're thinking of something unrelated to political ideology.

        • You're thinking of something unrelated to political ideology.

          You mean like election campaigns? Technically not related, true, but real related actions happen as a result of these elections all the same. Whether those actions are conservative themselves or not, they are part of the process of gaining and keeping power.

      • Don't forget whichever muslim group du jour. Where what is really going on is that the US is terrified of the Petrodollar going away. It's the only thing keeping our currency even partially stable.

    • Re:Fear of China (Score:4, Insightful)

      by SchroedingersCat ( 583063 ) on Monday December 22, 2025 @01:22AM (#65874007)
      It is not fear, it is reality. BRICS, Ukraine war, Taiwan - China isn't our ally. Never was.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Does Trump know the R in BRICS is Russia?
        Who's going to tell him?

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by gtall ( 79522 )

      It isn't an abject fear of China, it is merely an opening bid for some payments to el Bunko, preferably under the table but failing that, publicized Grand Spanking Pronouncements of some "investment" in America that el Bunko can cash in for political support. He isn't hard to figure out.

      • It isn't an abject fear of China

        Really? Then how do you explain the amazing overtures to the putin regime, the continuation of the withdrawal from Asia and Africa and the new exodus from Europe that we're seeing?

        Trump's administration explicitly links it to the need to defend itself from scary Gyna.

  • Why they are more expensive (Score:3)

    by gurps_npc ( 621217 ) on Monday December 22, 2025 @12:15AM (#65873963) Homepage

    Drones are plastics, motors, battery and computer chips.

    Most people know the batteries are more expensive. But most do not know that the motors are also surprisingly expensive to make in the US.

    China took over that business when they started making toys and appliances. It used to be unimportant and required labor not brains.

    The plastic and the computer chips are not cheaper in China.

    • Manufacturers in China have enjoyed a distinct advantage in in lax environmental regulations, low material costs and labor rates compared to US. US manufacturing is competitive on the high end. We just cannot compete with cheap volume manufacturing.

      • Manufacturers in China have enjoyed a distinct advantage in in lax environmental regulations, low material costs and labor rates compared to US. US manufacturing is competitive on the high end. We just cannot compete with cheap volume manufacturing.

        I suspect US manufacturing can compete at much of the low end now as labour costs is becoming almost irrelevant to much of it.

        However, the up front cost to build a fully automatic factory is substantial, and it requires constant ongoing capital investment to stay

        • Re:Why they are more expensive (Score:4, Informative)

          by BadDreamer ( 196188 ) on Monday December 22, 2025 @07:55AM (#65874253)

          Drone motors are standardized. 1203 7500 KV 1.5 for example has a 12 mm diameter 3 mm tall stator, 7500 revolutions per volt and a 1.5 mm prop shaft. While you want to match the four mounted, you can replace all four with any other brand and just retrim the drone and you're done.

        • Re:Why they are more expensive (Score:4, Informative)

          by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Monday December 22, 2025 @11:27AM (#65874567) Homepage Journal

          Imagine manufacturers getting together to standardise some of these things. Maybe they create a new standard every 5 years. If you want a drone motor you'll know what sort of power supply so what voltage it should take, whether it's a high RPM or lower RPM use case, what power and what weight.

          Outside of these custom all-in-one ready to fly drones, drone motors are ALREADY like that. They come in well-defined sizes, they are rated by kV (thousands of RPM per volt) and they have standard mounting holes. If you just don't screw with the fully preassembled drones up front you can easily get that kind of parts interchangeability. You can also buy controller/radio combos which provide the same or superior range to what DJI offers, so the only benefit to buying a prebuilt drone is that you don't have to do anything, and it comes with a number of down sides.

          I built my first quadcopter for under $200 all in, including a Devo 5 radio which I could load alternate firmware and an additional $10-ish radio transceiver module into so that it supports all of the major protocols. That's a price with regular range and without FPV, but the point remains — you don't need DJI.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Himmy32 ( 650060 )
            What are the best sources of information for custom building? And do have any recommendations or lessons learned from building your own that you would pass on to someone looking into building one?

            • It's been a while so I can't really direct you. When licensing became very uncertain I backed away and haven't done one in a while.

              My best advice is to get a good flight controller kit up front so everything works together without a lot of screwing around. Also to read lots of build logs before you do one. And maybe start with a cheap type to build familiarity.

              Also any design where you just have arms connected to a central board tends to be flimsy. I started with a SK450 and it's kind of floppy

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        Environmental regs in China can be brutal. Factories completely closed because they are too close to a river, industrial processes banned overnight. Then there is external stuff like RoHS.

        • Or are not closed due to the high rate of corruption.

          • High rate compared to what?

            The country, formerly known as USA today isn't any less corrupt than China. The only difference is that in China corruption is not a proud official policy, but is condemned and - at times, usually for reasons of political expediency - prosecuted.

            In the trumpistan, bribing the president by buying his meme shitcoin is, on the other hand, the norm now.

        • Environmental regs in China can be brutal. Factories completely closed because they are too close to a river, industrial processes banned overnight. Then there is external stuff like RoHS.

          You can't trust that a Chinese RoHS label is legit, Chinese companies are slapping it on shit like shoelaces. Meanwhile China has an essentially impossible to comply with RoHS standard for goods sold in their country, where you are taking responsibility for the content of your product, and you cannot simply cite your suppliers' specifications.

      • This is why we don’t process rare earths despite having 2 million metric tons of old deposits we have known about for ever and at least 10 times that in deposits people aren’t even really looking for including high earth quality ones. If you can’t pump the sludge down a creek and forget about the damage while paying workers next to nothing then it’s simply not cost competitive.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

      The plastic and the computer chips are not cheaper in China.

      The chips definitely are. The plastic itself might not be, but making the moulds is.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Software is the biggest issue. DJI isn't just cheaper, they are better. Not just the flight software, the UI, the cameras, the radio link, the autonomy features.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by djinn6 ( 1868030 )

        Yet software and firmware are the main pieces that poses a significant security concern. It's very difficult to design a motor or a chassis with a backdoor so that it can be controlled from half way across the world. Not so with software.

        If we are expecting a conventional military conflict at all, then such software should be written in the United States, especially any that have over-the-air updates. Or alternatively, the software is open source and can be verified by our own security agencies. Such softwa

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        It's got nothing to do with software, quality or national security. It's an untapped revenue stream - that's all.

        Police departments will still be able to buy and use DJI drones - they just need to pay their dues to the King to do so. Just like nvidia were once a "national security risk", now they're not, because they're paying the King for every sale they make in China. There'll be a brief 'grounding' of all DJI drones, then some complaining, and then "the deal maker" will let them pay to play. You've seen

  • Maybe you don't need or get as many drones North Dakota

    • Re:Oh it's difficult to get cheap drones? (Score:5, Funny)

      by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Monday December 22, 2025 @01:38AM (#65874019)

      Instead of 30 drones, North Dakota would be fine with two or three.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ufgrat ( 6245202 )

      I'm sure Mike Nathe's position has nothing to do with North Dakota's heavy investment into Grand Sky and Vantis, both of which are technology centers for unmanned aerial systems.

      Dubbed the “Silicon Valley of Drones” and home to one of seven Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) test sites conducting vital research, North Dakota is defining cutting-edge technology for uncrewed aircraft systems (UAS) with $77 million already invested in capital and infrastructure.

      • Maybe but that doesn't justify the idea their sheriffs departments should be using DJI instead and doesn't resolve the problems with that approach.

        DJI is also like a $30B company compared to that $77m investment.

  • Honestly (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    I don't care what intel China collects on me. What can they actually do with it? The US government is another story. They could easily declare me as a non citizen and have me disappear into a van.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Entrope ( 68843 )

      If you're ethnically Chinese, China will use your relatives to pressure you to do what they want, and might stalk you or drag you into one of their overseas police departments for interrogation or torture.

      China collects huge amounts of data on everyone they can, from everywhere they can, just in case. Unlike in the US, they don't need a reason to investigate you. https://www.discoursemagazine.... [discoursemagazine.com]

      If you carry electronics into China, or ship them through its ports, you can expect it to end up with implants.

    • Depending on your job, they may try to blackmail you. If you live near something they want to know about, they'll use you to surveil it without your knowledge.

  • it's the app (Score:3, Informative)

    by ZipNada ( 10152669 ) on Monday December 22, 2025 @01:03AM (#65873997)

    The drones by themselves will not be able to reach China on their own. Anything coming from them that could be sent elsewhere would have to go through a cellphone app that runs the drone, and that's where the risk is.

    And then there's the possibility that there's a kill switch implemented in the app, but that's the case with any drone hooked to a cellphone.

    • Why exactly couldn't the drones have a SIM card and cell connection themselves? Or even better a satellite link?

      • They could of course, but cellular modems with SIM cards are easily recognizable components which nobody appears to have seen on the drones. They also require a data plan with a national carrier which costs money. A satellite link is even more expensive.

        Far easier to simply use the customer's cellphone, which already provides connectivity for free.

  • Good (Score:3)

    by caseih ( 160668 ) on Monday December 22, 2025 @02:05AM (#65874031)

    I say go ahead and ban them. This notion of pervasive, constant, surveillance is a pernicious one. While they are at it, ban chinese CCTV equipment too.

    If the cost of surveilling is higher, police departments will be incentivized to use it more sparingly, and with cause. I mean they used to use manned helicopters all the time. Remember when TV stations would show live video of chases?

    Besides that, putting public money into local tech companies to make police drones isn't all that bad. Sure import Chinese motors, speed controllers, and batteries. But there's plenty of American know how for making quad copters with flight controllers.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ufgrat ( 6245202 )

      I guess you've never heard of Flock Safety.

    • Our local police department has a drone, DJI I believe. While they have used it for searching for a suspect, its primary use is SAR and supporting wildland fire suppression. It has already saved lives and helped mitigate wildland fires faster than without. We are a small rural county with a limited budget. Replacing it with a US based solution is cost prohibitive. Not replacing it could cost lives.

  • It's fairly easy to do a complete trace of all communication from a drone

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Entrope ( 68843 )

      Sure, but what good does it do you if it is encrypted and mostly goes to a single cloud endpoint? You can see the traffic volume over time, and that's about it.

      DJI were spying on users: https://www.thedroneu.com/blog... [thedroneu.com]

    • So you see an encrypted channel going from your device to a US-based CDN. Everything cloud-based these days routes all traffic through the company's own servers rather than locally device to device. You won't know what happens from that point.

  • Obviously, China will respond (Score:4, Interesting)

    by mkwan ( 2589113 ) on Monday December 22, 2025 @03:35AM (#65874093)

    If the US bans Chinese drones, China will probably respond by banning the export of drone motors. So America won't have any American drones either.

    Almost as stupid as the Nexperia seizure. Always consider how the other party will respond.

    • We taught them how to make those motors in the first place. I think we'll figure it out.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mkwan ( 2589113 )

        ???
        2: Use the rare earth metals to make some magnets
        3: Use the magnets to make some motors
        4: Profit!

  • It's not as good as "won't somebody please think of the children" but, apparently lots of people will buy into the notion that their consumer goods are betraying precious national secrets, like how many cat videos they watch and how crispy they like their toast.

    This is just rank protectionism, due to the rabid fear American billionaires have that they might not be making ALL the money.

    • I'll go a step further. American billionaires who tout day in day out to replace workers with AI fearing they're the ones to be replaced next by the Chinese.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by DarkOx ( 621550 )

      The problem isn't the Chinese know when you get up in the morning, but it becomes a problem when they know what time General Nuk'em does. Target operations via less then secure IoT stuff are easy enough to imagine, Operations that target a class of interesting are not necessarily impractical either.

      What happens when everyone on a base has fit bits and they get hacked? Suddenly there is a lot information about how many people are where when etc that could be actionable intelligence.

      Imagine that nice couple t

    • DJI drones phone home with location information as part of their basic functionality, so for these devices it's a valid concern.

  • How about we just start with that as a baseline and go from there. North Dakota's cops shouldn't be spending municipal tax dollars in China. We don't need capital leaking out of our treasuries to fund a competitor's growth.

  • But the Chinese drones are the best. What is the US govt doing to make American-made drones the best?

  • DJI, all of this could go away if the right amount of cryptocurrency is deposited into the right account. And would it kill you to rename your company to DJT?

  • The US shouldn't be dependent on an adversary for critical infrastructure.

    This is an opportunity for the US to build its own drone industry. As more US drones get sold the prices will come down.

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