Hundreds of Chinese-made drones have flown into restricted airspace over Washington, D.C., in recent months and officials are playing catch-up to prevent foreign-made technology from spying on those restricted areas. While China may not directly control these drones, any Chinese-made device could still covertly send data to China.
Sources told POLITICO they do not believe the Chinese government is directing the drones, which are manufactured by China-based DJI. But officials are beginning to see risks in American consumers buying Chinese technology that can enter one of the world’s most secure airspaces and potentially become another government’s surveillance system, or worse.
“The reality is that people in the tech sector were always saying, ‘Look, at any moment the Chinese can take control of a DJI flying in the air,'” an anonymous government contractor told POLITICO.
Commercial drones, including DJI’s, use “geofencing” to prohibit drones from entering restricted airspace like D.C.’s, but a government contractor told POLITICO that there are “YouTube videos that could guide the your grandparents” how to bypass these limitations and allow users to fly their drones wherever they want.
Because these restrictions are easily and often circumvented, drones are likely even more vulnerable to government-backed hackers like China’s. A POLITICO source used the metaphor of someone who gets a DJI drone for Christmas “and is unwittingly collecting data for someone who could become a serious adversary.”
To begin addressing these concerns, the FAA has required a digital system similar to drone license plates and is testing new detection technology at airports, POLITICO reported.
Rubio told POLITICO that any technology with Chinese roots “has a real risk and a potential for vulnerability that can be exploited both now and in times of conflict.”
“Everything that is technological has the ability to have embedded, in the software or in the actual hardware, vulnerabilities that can be exploited at any moment,” added Rubio.
The U.S. government is considering other security risks posed by commercial drones, such as their ability to be easily weaponized.
FBI Director Christopher Wray said earlier this month that the agency is “investigating, even as we speak, multiple incidents, including in the United States, of attempted weaponization of drones homemade [improvised explosive devices]”, according to POLITICO.
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