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Is it legal for DJI to exclude users from analysing Black Box data?

Yannie

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Why is Black Box data not open-source?

As pilots, shouldn't we be able to analyse the black box data when there was a incident during a flight?

It's clear that Flight Log data (DAT and TXT files) are unreliable and inconsistently recorded, and many users are unable to access the data with firmware version above 01.03.0900

I've asked DJI to help me analyse Black Box data and they said that it is not open source and they do not provide a tool for users.

Are companies allowed to make critical system logs proprietary?

Is there a legal statute here?
In Australia, for instance, the "Freedom of Information Act" may apply here.

Isn't the flight data our intellectual property?
Is it legal for DJI to restrict our access to our intellectual property?
DJI are restricting access to the tools which would allow us to analyse our intellectual property, claiming that revealing their source code would compromise their intellectual property.

Google Takeouts allows you to download all your raw data. There is absolutely no difference here.

When we fly our drone, we must be able to make an informed decision about whether or nor the drone is safe to operate.
If our drone injures the public while we are controlling it, we will be liable, not DJI. It is up to us to decide whether our vehicle is safe to fly or not.
  • eg, how can we anticipate whether our drone is safe to fly if we cannot analyse our previous flight data to assess whether all the flight modules are behaving normally, or not?
  • if your drone suddenly behaves erratically and injures someone, shouldn't the black box data be publicly accessible so that an independent root-cause analysis can be undertaken?
The public probably have legal right to analyse what is in the Black Box of aircraft (ie, not just the sporadically recorded DAT files in the flight logs)

As responsible pilots of a very small aircraft, let's put our heads together here.

Where you live:
  • Does the law consider critical system logs of aerial vehicles to be the "intellectual property" of the pilot?
  • Is it legal for organisations to encrypt your intellectual property, making it so that you need their proprietary tool in order to access your intellectual property?

Cheers

Yannie
 
Last edited:
You should find some third party hacking software and try to reclaim what DJI has stolen from you.......
Wait....hold on a minute...... Maybe not, you may end up with a paper weight that wont do anything.
i am sure you wouldnt try something like that!
Carry on! :D
 
You should find some third party hacking software and try to reclaim what DJI has stolen from you.......
Wait....hold on a minute...... Maybe not, you may end up with a paper weight that wont do anything.
i am sure you wouldnt try something like that!
Carry on! :D
Could you please stop being a Troll.
 
As pilots, shouldn't we be able to analyse the black box data when there was a incident during a flight?
Sure makes sense, but that's not currently a legal requirement anywhere for this category of device.

They have no obligation to provide it to you, heck they don't even have an obligation to record the data in the first place, so they can currently do whatever they want.
 
Basically, if you consider a DJI more then a chinesse seller of overpriced selfie drones you are ready to buy in into lets say Apple bull*** uhm crap too if you already havent. Otherwise welcome to the club of awaken... No offence to anybody I am just little bit sceptical recently as I crashed my Mavic on my birthsday due to loss of signal after goin to .300 fw and testing new RC goggles and outside of little mavic having little issue with camera calibration... I just do not know what happened cause blaclbox wont tell and video transmition failed before I realized it was fatal.. :/
 
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