The Era of The Big Brother Drone
The DJI drones and others as well, add yet another avenue for Big Brother to ‘spy’ on us. Like the auto insurance company that offers lower rates for using their wifi dongle in your car to monitor your driving habits, so to the wifi connected drones do as well. I noticed that on signing the service agreement with DJI that all my privacy rights are waived and all data will be shared with DJI and God knows who else like the NSA, CIA, FBI, FAA, Chinese & US governments, etc. As if we needed another privacy violation, we with these drones have willingly allowed that to happen. When registering a drone with the FAA, we are now subject to compliance controls. What form will that take should soon be apparent. How will the drone cloud data be used?
US Gov says China may have access to Drone Data! Ya think? Really? Is that why the DJI tech support responses have all those Chinese characters in the email? How about the US gov agencies also having access? Do you really think they don’t? Everything or do or say within reception distance of the drone is going to the cloud in the sky. Just say Alexa, play my favorite song.
How long will it be do you think, before the Feds aka FAA will issue violations from flight data? Flying too high, 1-week suspension? Flying in prohibited areas, jail time, fine or worse? With the wifi connection ‘they’ could shut down your drone at any time they please. If you are a ‘trouble maker’ in the eyes of the bureaucrats what is to prevent ‘them’ from hacking your drone and causing a fly away or unexplained crash? Maybe that is already happening? How about opening up your drone microphone and camera to gather intelligence data for use in prosecution or just perusing your flight log?
I bought my drone to enjoy the hobby of aerial photography and just to enjoy flying it around to relax. The powers that be cannot resist this ‘tool’ to gather data for use (as they see fit as all unscrupulous power-hungry control freaks employed in the government and corporate ranks) as they no doubt already are doing.
The solution? Get rid of the drone? Maybe. Turn off your wifi connection? Why not? You just won’t receive any new updates which contain new spy ware. Just ignore ‘them’ and have fun flying? I think a combination of these is my solution for now.
The DJI drones and others as well, add yet another avenue for Big Brother to ‘spy’ on us. Like the auto insurance company that offers lower rates for using their wifi dongle in your car to monitor your driving habits, so to the wifi connected drones do as well. I noticed that on signing the service agreement with DJI that all my privacy rights are waived and all data will be shared with DJI and God knows who else like the NSA, CIA, FBI, FAA, Chinese & US governments, etc. As if we needed another privacy violation, we with these drones have willingly allowed that to happen. When registering a drone with the FAA, we are now subject to compliance controls. What form will that take should soon be apparent. How will the drone cloud data be used?
US Gov says China may have access to Drone Data! Ya think? Really? Is that why the DJI tech support responses have all those Chinese characters in the email? How about the US gov agencies also having access? Do you really think they don’t? Everything or do or say within reception distance of the drone is going to the cloud in the sky. Just say Alexa, play my favorite song.
How long will it be do you think, before the Feds aka FAA will issue violations from flight data? Flying too high, 1-week suspension? Flying in prohibited areas, jail time, fine or worse? With the wifi connection ‘they’ could shut down your drone at any time they please. If you are a ‘trouble maker’ in the eyes of the bureaucrats what is to prevent ‘them’ from hacking your drone and causing a fly away or unexplained crash? Maybe that is already happening? How about opening up your drone microphone and camera to gather intelligence data for use in prosecution or just perusing your flight log?
I bought my drone to enjoy the hobby of aerial photography and just to enjoy flying it around to relax. The powers that be cannot resist this ‘tool’ to gather data for use (as they see fit as all unscrupulous power-hungry control freaks employed in the government and corporate ranks) as they no doubt already are doing.
The solution? Get rid of the drone? Maybe. Turn off your wifi connection? Why not? You just won’t receive any new updates which contain new spy ware. Just ignore ‘them’ and have fun flying? I think a combination of these is my solution for now.