Back in January, we brought you the news that DJI was removing the no-fly zones from its drones. Now, in an interview with The Verge, DJI has explained its reasons for the decision. The company also talked about a potential ban on its products in the U.S. later this year.
What’s geofencing?
DJI introduced its geofencing system back in 2013 when there weren’t many formal drone flight rules and regulations. The system was designed as a built-in voluntary safety feature to ensure responsible flight practices by consumer drone users. DJI’s software created no-fly zones to stop you from flying your drone over restricted locations. These included airports, power plants and government buildings like the White House.
However, last month DJI announced that it was updating the geofencing system to remove the no-fly zone restrictions.
What did DJI say?
Last week, The Verge interviewed Adam Welsh, DJI’s head of global policy. Welsh pointed out that since DJI introduced its no-fly zones, “none of the regulatory agencies have chosen to mandate geofencing.” He also explained that the system could be disabled quite easily. As a result, Welsh said, “It was never going to stop a bad actor from doing something wrong.” In addition, he pointed out that French and American drone manufacturers hadn’t implemented no-fly zones.
So why has DJI removed no-fly zones?
Welsh said the regulators “have stuck to the basic principle that the operator should be in control of the drone, the airplane, or any other kind of aviation object at all times.” Regulators have also mandated community-based organization safety training, LAANC (Low Altitude Authorization and Notification Capability) permissions to access controlled airspace around airports and Remote ID. Welsh explained, “What we’ve done is we’ve switched to a system that means the operator has more accurate information but also maintains control of the drone at all times.”
Impact on emergency services
Welsh went on to say that the no-fly zones also impacted on emergency services using DJI drones. He said, “We frequently would hear from firefighters, first responders, and others who were trying to launch and maybe weren’t flying in their normal area. They had gone into a disaster area to try and fly to assist a neighboring agency, and they were having to spend precious minutes or hours to get their drone unlocked. In an instance where somebody’s trying to launch a drone to save a life, we don’t want to impede that in any way, shape, or form.”
Will DJI products be banned in the U.S.?
At the end of last year, Congress decided not to ban DJI products immediately. However, there is still the potential for a ban at the end of 2025 if the government hasn’t carried out a risk assessment on the company. Welsh said, “We’ve estimated that more than 400,000 jobs are being supported by the use of DJI equipment in the United States, and so there is a sizable impact to doing something negative on DJI. That puts the onus on the government, I think, to actually do [the risk assessment] thoroughly within the timeframe.”
What will the ban mean for DJI?
Welsh explained that if a ban came into force, “It’s not retroactive. What it would do is actually prevent us from launching new products because we wouldn’t be able to get the certifications we need for new products. So you’d be in kind of a perverse situation where the current Mavic model would continue to be on sale in the U.S., but a newer model would be available in Canada and Mexico and everywhere else in the world. The real tragedy around this is the collateral damage it would cause to resellers, which are American companies, and to the American software businesses that have built their entire businesses around DJI products.”
What we think
Some observers have questioned why DJI would remove no-fly zones when it’s under close scrutiny from the U.S. government. Therefore, it’s an interesting insight to get the company’s perspective on the decision. The move to pass responsibility back to drone users is more in line with the policies of regulators in the United States. It’s also notable that regulators didn’t ask other drone manufacturers to implement no-fly zones. However, DJI still has battles to fight with the U.S. government over the coming months. We will continue to keep you updated.
