April 3, 2023
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State police forces across Australia have acquired the same Chinese drones blacklisted by the US due to fears they are linked back to the Chinese military.
As the debate over the potential risks posed by Chinese technology escalates in Canberra, the nation’s largest police forces, including NSW, Victoria, Queensland and Western Australia, are among the organisations that have used drones manufactured by DJI, the world’s largest drone maker. Tasmania Police also uses DJI technology.
The drones are used to search for people, inspect sites of interest such as drug crops, for surveillance of protests and other gatherings, and to take aerial photographs to assist with investigations into accidents and at other crime scenes.
There are hundreds of thousands of DJI drones in Australia, mainly for private use, but their large footprint in law enforcement is causing concern, given increasing trepidation about the risks posed by Chinese technology, including the telco Huawei, and surveillance cameras HikVision and Dahua, which are being removed from federal facilities. The government is considering banning Beijing-owned TikTok from government devices.
The US has taken a hawkish approach to DJI Technology, also known as Da Jiang Innovations, which is headquartered in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, and is ostensibly privately owned. An investigation by analyst Charles Rollet at IPVM showed one of its key investors is China Chentong Holdings Group, which in turn is controlled by the Beijing-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission. Three other state-owned organisations also list DJI as an investment, according to an investigation by The Washington Post.
As well as its links to Beijing, the company is out of favour in the West due to the deployment of its drones in Beijing’s mass surveillance of the minority Uyghur population in Xinjiang, and its use by Russia in the war in Ukraine.
In 2021, the US Treasury sanctioned DJI over the Uyghur surveillance, banning American-based citizens from trading in DJI shares. In October, the Pentagon went further, blacklisting DJI and 12 other Chinese companies from involvement in US Defence projects due to alleged links to the Chinese military.
The Australian identified the five police forces in Australia which have previously spruiked the use of DJI drones through media release and photographs.
Asked if they still used the drones, and if their use was appropriate, the police forces gave mixed responses, and did not specifically state which technology they used.
Robert Potter, co-founder of cyber security firm internet 2.0, who is currently working in Ukraine, said there were “much more trusted suppliers for government equipment than DJI’’.
“DJI equipment is difficult to certify and use with trust,’’ he said.
“As a home platform they are pretty safe but for government there are questions about data flows and how their technology works.’’
DJI strongly denies Chinese military links or sharing data with Beijing and has said its drones are designed for civilian and hobby use, not the military.
The Australian government has made no recommendations to state and territory authorities to cease using the technology, and some federal agencies are likely to also be using it.
Opposition cyber security spokesman James Paterson said he had launched an audit of all federal entities to see who was using DJI drones, just as he had last year to discover how many HikVision and Dahua surveillance cameras were installed at government facilities. That audit identified about 1000 such devices, most of which are now being removed.
None of the five police forces would confirm they operated DJI drones, although Queensland police referred to previous media statements showcasing the work they were doing in Far North Queensland with DJI drones.
WA police said they used more than 60 “Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems with around 72 remote pilots’’.
“This technology is greatly suited to WA’s size, topography and population distribution,’’ a spokesman said.
Victoria Police said it had “more than 70 drone assets sourced from a number of suppliers and applies appropriate data handling procedures in relation to the use of this technology’’.
Tasmania Police said it had “28 CASA-certified remote pilots and maintain 30 drones across the state. ‘’
NSW Police declined to answer questions.
