For over a decade, you couldn’t easily fly a DJI drone over restricted areas in the United States. DJI’s software would automatically stop you from flying over runways, power plants, public emergencies like wildfires, and the White House.
But confusingly, amidst the greatest US outpouring of drone distrust in years, and an incident of a DJI drone operator hindering LA wildfire fighting efforts, DJI is getting rid of its strong geofence. DJI will no longer enforce “No-Fly Zones,” instead only offering a dismissible warning — meaning only common sense, empathy, and the fear of getting caught by authorities will prevent people from flying where they shouldn’t.
drone and their operator during flight, are “providing authorities with the tools needed to enforce existing rules,” DJI global policy head Adam Welsh tells The Verge.
But it turns out the DJI drone that damaged a Super Scooper airplane fighting the Los Angeles wildfires was a sub-250-gram model that may not require Remote ID to operate, and the FBI expects it will have to “work backwards through investigative means” to figure out who flew it there.
DJI voluntarily created its geofencing feature, so it makes a certain degree of sense that the company would get rid of it now that the US government no longer seems to appreciate its help, is blocking some of its drone imports, calls DJI a “Chinese Military Company,” and has started the countdown clock on a de facto import ban.
“The FAA does not require geofencing from drone manufacturers,” FAA spokesperson Ian Gregor confirms to The Verge.But former DJI head of global policy, Brendan Schulman, doesn’t seem to think this is a move