The US Department of Homeland Security is warning that drones manufactured in China are a “potential risk to an organization’s information,” because they are capable of sending sensitive flight data to servers that may be accessed by the manufacturer as well as by other parties, such as the Chinese government.
While report refrains from naming individual drone manufacturers, it effectively targets Chinese drone producer DJI, which accounts for 80% of the drone market in the US and Canada. The warning mentions that “the United States government has strong concerns about any technology product that takes American data into the territory of an authoritarian state that permits its intelligence services to have unfettered access to that data or otherwise abuses that access.”
The timing of the alert if significant, as it comes less than a week after US President Donald Trump’s issued an executive order enabling the US government to ban the use of foreign telecommunications equipment by US firms. That order intended to target Chinese tech giant Huawei, which the US government has boycotted over security concerns.
Read more: DHS warns of ‘strong concerns’ that Chinese-made drones are stealing data
