DJI Challenges US Safety Companies In NDAA Deadline Push

Chinese language drone maker DJI has formally requested 5 US nationwide safety businesses to judge its merchandise forward of a essential December 31, 2025 deadline established by Nationwide Protection Authorization Act provisions. In a letter despatched to the Division of Homeland Safety, Division of Protection, FBI, NSA, and Workplace of the Director of Nationwide Intelligence in March, DJI’s Head of International Coverage Adam Welsh urged the businesses to start their required safety evaluations instantly.

The letter, dated March 3, 2025, was addressed to DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth, FBI Director Kash Patel, NSA’s Normal Timothy D. Haugh, and ODNI Director Tulsi Gabbard, as proven within the supply doc.

Regulatory Strain and Potential Market Restrictions

The letter comes as DJI faces potential restrictions within the US market if any of those businesses determines their merchandise pose “an unacceptable threat” to nationwide safety. Extra regarding for the corporate, if no analysis happens by the deadline, the FCC would robotically add DJI’s tools to its “coated listing,” successfully proscribing their use throughout the United States, in keeping with the corporate’s interpretation of Part 1709 of the 2025 Nationwide Protection Authorization Act.

“We welcome this scrutiny,” Welsh said within the letter, including that “DJI is assured that its merchandise can stand up to your strictest scrutiny.” The corporate emphasised that the analysis’s final result impacts “1000’s of companies, customers, and public security businesses” that depend on their expertise.

Earlier Safety Assessments and Certifications

DJI cited Information Safety audits beforehand carried out by third-party companies together with Booz Allen Hamilton, FTI Consulting, and Kivu Consulting, in addition to assessments by the US Division of Inside and Idaho Nationwide Laboratory. The letter references particular studies from these organizations, together with two separate evaluations carried out by FTI Consulting in 2022 and 2024.

Information Safety Options and Privateness Protections

In addressing knowledge safety issues, DJI emphasised a number of key privateness options of their merchandise. In response to the letter, no flight logs, pictures, or movies are synchronized with DJI servers until customers actively select to take action, and US customers can not sync flight data to DJI servers in any respect. The corporate additionally gives a “Native Information Mode” that forestalls any knowledge sharing by reducing the connection between the flight app and the web.

Financial Impression and Trade Stakes

The stakes are excessive for each DJI and the US drone ecosystem. In response to an financial influence evaluation cited within the letter, DJI permits greater than $116 billion in financial exercise throughout the US and helps over 450,000 American jobs.

Strategic Strategy and Future Outlook

The formal request represents a proactive method from the world’s main drone producer because it makes an attempt to handle safety issues which have shadowed the corporate in recent times. DJI has requested conferences with officers from every company to reveal their drones’ security measures and tackle any questions on their expertise.

This growth comes amid rising scrutiny of Chinese language expertise firms in the USA, with DJI in search of to tell apart itself by means of transparency and cooperation with American authorities earlier than the NDAA deadline probably forces restrictions on its merchandise.

The DJI Letter

Right here’s the textual content of the unique letter from DJI:

March 3, 2025

The Honorable Kristi Noem
Secretary
Division of Homeland Safety
MS 0525 Division of Homeland Safety
2707 Martin Luther King Jr. Ave SE
Washington, DC 20528-0525

The Honorable Pete Hegseth
Secretary
Division of Protection
1000 Protection Pentagon
Washington, DC 20301-1000

The Honorable Kash Patel
Director
Federal Bureau of Investigation
935 Pennsylvania Ave., NW
Washington, DC 20535-0001

The Honorable Gen. Timothy D. Haugh
Director
Nationwide Safety Company
9800 Savage Rd., Suite 6272
Fort George G. Meade, MD 20755-6000

The Honorable Tulsi Gabbard
Director
Workplace of the Director of Nationwide Intelligence
Workplace of Strategic Communications
Washington, DC 20511

Expensive Secretary Noem, Secretary Hegseth, Director Patel, Normal Haugh, and Director Gabbard:

DJI was based to develop drones that will make the world a greater place and profit society. From our beginnings in a single dorm room on the Hong Kong College of Science and Expertise in 2006, DJI has grown to a world firm with a world workforce. In the present day, DJI merchandise are redefining industries. Professionals in regulation enforcement, agriculture, conservation, Search and Rescue, vitality infrastructure, filmmaking and extra TRUST DJI. Our merchandise deliver new views to those professionals’ work and assist them accomplish feats extra safely, sooner, and with better effectivity than ever earlier than. They’re additionally flown and loved by hobbyists throughout America.

DJI has been credited with creating the small off-the-shelf drone class and holds (or has pending) greater than 5,000 international patents. Due to this first-mover benefit and continued innovation, analysis, and growth, international customers select DJI merchandise overwhelmingly for business, scientific, public security and leisure functions.

Regardless of this success – or maybe due to it – some policymakers have raised issues that DJI’s merchandise could pose safety or security dangers to the USA. And as you could know, Congress has tasked any certainly one of your businesses with evaluating whether or not that is true.

We welcome this scrutiny.

Particularly, Part 1709 of the 2025 Nationwide Protection Authorization Act “mandates that inside one yr of enactment, a chosen nationwide safety company should consider whether or not communications and video surveillance tools from these producers pose ‘an unacceptable threat’ to U.S. nationwide safety or the security of Americans.” When you decide that DJI’s drones pose an unacceptable threat, the Federal Communications Fee (FCC) should add them to its “coated listing,” successfully proscribing their use in the USA. If you don’t consider DJI’s merchandise in 2025, the FCC would even have so as to add the corporate’s tools to its coated listing, depriving DJI of its due course of and depriving 1000’s of companies, customers, and public security businesses of merchandise that they need and want for no purpose in any respect. Accordingly, I write to request that any or your whole businesses start this required analysis of DJI’s merchandise immediately.

DJI is assured that its merchandise can stand up to your strictest scrutiny. We’re assured not solely as a result of we now have nothing to cover, however as a result of impartial companies and different U.S. Authorities businesses have repeatedly validated and confirmed that DJI’s merchandise are safe. Via the years, firms together with Booz Allen Hamilton, FTI Consulting, Kivu Consulting and TÜV SÜD, in addition to the U.S. Division of Inside and the Idaho Nationwide Laboratory, have bought DJI merchandise off-the-shelf, assessed DJI’s knowledge safety practices, and carried out thorough technical investigations. We’ve got responded to their constructive suggestions and proven a willingness to work with any company as is requested; if needed, we’re additionally ready to answer and mitigate any particular vulnerabilities that anybody else could establish, as we recurrently do by means of our “Bug Bounty” program as effectively.

DJI knowledge practices and merchandise have beforehand obtained safety certifications from worldwide and U.S. authorities standard-setting our bodies, together with ISO 27001, ISO 27701, NIST FIPS 140-2 CMVP Stage 1, and the American Institute of Licensed Public Accountants SOC2 certification. Additional, a 2022 audit confirmed that DJI merchandise met NIST IR 8259 and ETSI EN 303645 requirements by way of community safety and privateness safety. They’re additionally GDPR-compliant and permit enterprise customers to stop unauthorized entry to drone knowledge by using AES-256-XTS encryption – the longest encryption key size established by NIST when it developed its superior encryption commonplace (AES).

Business, scientific, public security and leisure customers of DJI drones have a vested curiosity within the safety of their knowledge. Because the world’s main drone producer, we stake our popularity on ensuring our merchandise and person knowledge stay safe. We’ve got applied various options and protocols to make sure that our drones shield person knowledge – whereas offering customers with a option to fly their drones with none knowledge transmission in any respect. For instance:

• No flight logs, pictures, or movies are synced with DJI servers until a person affirmatively chooses to sync with a DJI server.
• U.S. customers can not sync their flight data to DJI’s servers in any respect.
• Customers can fly offline or in “Native Information Mode,” which severs the connection between the flight app and the web to stop knowledge sharing, even inadvertently.
• Customers can amend their knowledge preferences at any time by means of the app’s settings, simply delete info on the drone, or obtain third-party software program options. They will even disable the DJI flight app altogether, if they like.

DJI’s drones are essentially the most succesful, greatest priced, and most dependable business drones at present in use at the moment. Proscribing DJI drone imports or use would have a ripple impact all through all the U.S. drone ecosystem. A current financial influence evaluation discovered that DJI permits greater than $116 billion in financial exercise throughout the U.S. and helps greater than 450,000 American jobs.

The individuals who have constructed livelihoods utilizing DJI merchandise deserve a good and well timed analysis by your businesses to carry the cloud on our firm and reassure DJI’s prospects and the American public that DJI’s drones are protected and safe.

Our dedication to security and safety is steadfast, and we pledge our full cooperation throughout this course of, together with by offering you with any info or help that may assist. We additionally imagine it will likely be helpful so that you can meet with DJI as a part of a good analysis course of. Accordingly, we respectfully request a gathering with you or your employees at your earliest comfort to reveal the info security measures on our drones, tackle any questions or issues, and guarantee your analysis is carried out in a well timed method.

Sincerely,

Adam Welsh
Head of International Coverage
DJI

CC: Sen. Roger Wicker, Chair, Senate Armed Companies Committee
Sen. Jack Reed, Rating Member, Senate Armed Companies Committee
Members of the Senate Armed Companies Committee

Sen. Rand Paul, Chair, Senate Committee on Homeland Safety & Governmental Affairs
Sen. Gary Peters, Rating Member, Senate Committee on Homeland Safety & Governmental Affairs
Members of the Senate Committee on Homeland Safety & Governmental Affairs

Rep. Mike Rogers, Chair, Home Armed Companies Committee
Rep. Adam Smith, Rating Member, Home Armed Companies Committee
Members of the Home Armed Companies Committee

Rep. Mark Inexperienced, Chair, Home Homeland Safety Committee
Rep. Bennie Thompson, Rating Member, Home Homeland Safety Committee
Members of the Home Homeland Safety Committee