DJI, in particular has a bunch of phone-home kill switch stuff built in. The FAA mandated a lot of it, and now I think they realize that, in practice, that mean

DJI, in particular has a bunch of phone-home kill switch stuff built in. The FAA mandated a lot of it, and now I think they realize that, in practice, that means they're mandating that the Chinese military has indirect control over drones operated by Americans on US soil. I think it'd be better to ban remote kill switches and instead mandate GIS databases that warn you if you're violating airspace restrictions (for drones over a certain size, where this isn't adding a bunch of complexity). Shielding domestic drone manufacturers from international competition essentially guarantees that we'll fall behind China. That will cause a national security issue worse than the current situation. Sometimes I wonder if the regulators are intentionally screwing the US over, or if it's just that the federal government has become unable to coordinate the actions of its own agencies. edit: The sibling comments are great examples of why we need strong privacy laws. If it was illegal for DJI to exfiltrate the data the drones gather back to their manufacturers, then those classes of national security issues would take care of themselves, and the rules would solve the problem for all industries, not just this one company.