P3 sends data to FAA?

[ianwood]

I find it hard to fathom the vast amount of BS being flung around, if you are worried about your flight data being snooped then just DON'T SYNC the **** stuff, how hard is that to understand. I don't see any benefit in syncing it in any case, if you need a warranty claim the internal logs will suffice. I don't sync mine, and I don't connect to the net while flying, not because I am paranoid about any perceived snooping but I just don't see any reason to. People just need to stop worrying and go fly.

Just because you don't hit the sync button doesn't mean data isn't being transferred when you connect to the Internet. Apps routinely harvest all sorts of superfluous data. That's not some tin-foil hat theory. That's fact.

We'd need a Wireshark dump to see exactly what is sent and when.

 

[blade strike]

Many companies are all to quick to cough up customer data during informal gov't requests. The gov't often uses similar to tactics that many police use when asking people if they may search their car or something similar. People get confused and say yes way too quickly not knowing that they aren't obliged to do so or feeling otherwise pressured into it.

It would be really beneficial if DJI had an official policy on data protection, data security, data reuse / resale and gov't data requests. It's all well and good if we're told here informally but official statements would be a lot more reassuring.

Ian -

I would expect you to not be such a tinfoil hat type guy.. As you should know if the government wants any type of information on any of us, it wouldn't need to come from DJI. 2nd DJI couldn't release ANY information without a court order.

If you want an official response then contact the proper channels, [email protected]

 

[blade strike]

Just because you don't hit the sync button doesn't mean data isn't being transferred when you connect to the Internet. Apps routinely harvest all sorts of superfluous data. That's not some tin-foil hat theory. That's fact.

We'd need a Wireshark dump to see exactly what is sent and when.

My god, it's not very hard to check firewall logs.. I dare you.. If you're that worried don't connect the tablet to the interwebs The next thing I will hear is that the p3 has an internal air card and is streaming data to the mother ship

If DJI could just download logs at any point then what's the need for BETA testers to upload flight logs? Don't they already have all the data?!

I can tell with the above comments no one has even taken a look at where the app stores it's data or what is stored..

 

[Tahoe Ed]

Many companies are all to quick to cough up customer data during informal gov't requests. The gov't often uses similar to tactics that many police use when asking people if they may search their car or something similar. People get confused and say yes way too quickly not knowing that they aren't obliged to do so or feeling otherwise pressured into it.

It would be really beneficial if DJI had an official policy on data protection, data security, data reuse / resale and gov't data requests. It's all well and good if we're told here informally but official statements would be a lot more reassuring.




The P3 is a new bird with built-in NAND and onboard SD storage. It could easily store a lat, lon and airport type for every single airport on the planet in under 300Kb and that's before any optimization.

They could (and should) do polylines of actual airspace instead. It would actually be much easier. All the shape files are easily downloaded from the gov't.

Ian, I am not sure where you are coming from. DJI as a company has treated you very well and yet you continue to disrespect us. We appreciate your purchase of our products but you cannot continue to post that we are a bad company. We do not share our users data with anyone. Why you would think so is beyond me.

 

[Ed209]

Just hookup a packet capture and monitor all the traffic that goes out. If I was worried about the FAA getting anything I would do it. Or if you're really geeky, analyze the code of the app.

 

[ianwood]

Ian, I am not sure where you are coming from. DJI as a company has treated you very well and yet you continue to disrespect us. We appreciate your purchase of our products but you cannot continue to post that we are a bad company. We do not share our users data with anyone. Why you would think so is beyond me.

Ed, I never said DJI shares data with anyone. I said we don't know what DJI does because there is no official statement on data management from DJI. I was suggesting DJI issue such a document so that it would be clear as to how they handle data.

And on being clear, you should know I have never disparaged DJI. I only say it as I see it irrespective of how DJI treats me. I don't take sides. Some comments may be flattering, others not. It's the way it is.

 

[F6Rider]

I can tell with the above comments no one has even taken a look at where the app stores it's data or what is stored..

I have, but it does no good Blade, I am going to stop beating my head against the wall, some people are not happy unless they can ***** about something. Perhaps the P3 is 'Alive' and watching you and reporting back to it's masters your every move. (Que the Twilight Zone music)

 

[snerd]

I have, but it does no good Blade, I am going to stop beating my head against the wall, some people are not happy unless they can ***** about something. Perhaps the P3 is 'Alive' and watching you and reporting back to it's masters your every move. (Que the Twilight Zone music)

They saw what you did, and they know who you are.

 

[jlummel]

I don't know why you think it's an "International Airport", the name in the Airport Directory is simply "Kingman Airport".
There are 15,000 airports in the US and I doubt there's enough memory in the Phantom for that much data. So, the DJI No-Fly database just includes all airports in Class B airspace and most in Class C airspace. Kingman is in Class E airspace. If you are within 5 miles you can call the airport manager to advise of your flight. There is no control tower.

David French
7000 Flightline Dr.
Kingman, Az 86401
Phone 928-757-2134

I stand corrected! I guess this is just a local 'urban legend' that the Kingman Airport is an international airport, likely goes back to the WWII days. Thanks!

As for enough memory for all 15,000 airports, depends on how the information is stored. You could get away with only storing latitude, longitude & altitude in meters of the center of the airport, and then a circumference in meters. That's 2x 32-bit numbers (4 bytes each), 2x 16-bit number (2 bytes each) for a total of 12 bytes of data, so for 15,000 airports that's 180k of memory. But adding in a 25% overhead for indexing data so the information is quick to find (which is very much worse case, so it's almost certainly less) and that's only 225k of data. And there is a lot of room for optimizing the data to take even less than 12 bytes per airport.

Interestingly enough, Kingman Airport is now listed on the DJI No-Fly list per their "Fly Safe" website. They must have added a lot of new airports with the recent firmware release, as Kingman was not on this list when I originally checked, so this is new.

That said, my initial point of NOT taking it for granted that if the DJI will fly then it's legal still stands as I can't see how it would be OK to fly across the runways of airports not in the DJI database, even if they are smaller than international.

So while DJI prevents us making the most egregious of errors, they are not preventing us from making any errors at all when it comes to no-fly zones.

That's up to the individual pilots to prevent!

 

[SteveMann]

I stand corrected! I guess this is just a local 'urban legend' that the Kingman Airport is an international airport, likely goes back to the WWII days. Thanks!

As for enough memory for all 15,000 airports, depends on how the information is stored. You could get away with only storing latitude, longitude & altitude in meters of the center of the airport, and then a circumference in meters. That's 2x 32-bit numbers (4 bytes each), 2x 16-bit number (2 bytes each) for a total of 12 bytes of data, so for 15,000 airports that's 180k of memory. But adding in a 25% overhead for indexing data so the information is quick to find (which is very much worse case, so it's almost certainly less) and that's only 225k of data. And there is a lot of room for optimizing the data to take even less than 12 bytes per airport.

Interestingly enough, Kingman Airport is now listed on the DJI No-Fly list per their "Fly Safe" website. They must have added a lot of new airports with the recent firmware release, as Kingman was not on this list when I originally checked, so this is new.

That said, my initial point of NOT taking it for granted that if the DJI will fly then it's legal still stands as I can't see how it would be OK to fly across the runways of airports not in the DJI database, even if they are smaller than international.

So while DJI prevents us making the most egregious of errors, they are not preventing us from making any errors at all when it comes to no-fly zones.

That's up to the individual pilots to prevent!

Realize that the DJI database is to cover their collective ***, not yours. That's why Class B and C airports were first because that's where you will find large airliners. Smaller airports will see a few 737's or DC9's a week, or not at all.

Also, smaller airports are closing at a rate of 2 a month, so all of a sudden there's a big open space that would be perfect for flying a drone, but you can't because it would take DJI longer to update the database before the property is redeveloped into road clogging other uses.

 

[SteveMann]

I stand corrected! I guess this is just a local 'urban legend' that the Kingman Airport is an international airport, likely goes back to the WWII days. Thanks!

Until 1996 airports could call themselves "International", but since then airport names are conforming to ICAO standards [link]. Today to be an International Airport, there has to be a US Customs agent on the airport and nearby immigration facilities.

 

[jlummel]

Realize that the DJI database is to cover their collective ***, not yours. [...]

By covering MY *** it helps DJI stay out of trouble and our mutual goals of not being incarcerated, not having draconian rules implemented or being prevented from generally buying or flying a drone are achieved.

Self-interest isn't the evil that PC people try to make it out to be and shouldn't generally be treated with scorn!

Self-interest makes the wold go around. Take any company you ever worked for, did they hire you because YOU needed the money? Did you waive your salary because the company was more important, working for them for free? Likely not, and that mutual self-interest kept that company profitable and you and your family housed, clothed and fed. NOTE- working for yourself is a PERFECT melding of your company's self-interest and yours, BTW.

Self-interest is only a problem when yours and theirs don't coincide, then you vote with your feet and find one that does.

If flying at closed airports that are on the DJI No-Fly list is in your self-interest, then you need to vote with your dollars and buy another brand that better coincidences with your aims and goals. It's not rocket science...

 

[SteveMann]

By covering MY *** it helps DJI stay out of trouble and our mutual goals of not being incarcerated, not having draconian rules implemented or being prevented from generally buying or flying a drone are achieved.

It's the other way around. DJI doesn't give a rat's behind about you. The Do Not Fly database built into the drones only protects DJI. If someone crashes a DJI drone in a Do Not Fly zone that is in the DJI database and lawsuits result, it will be the DJI owner paying for lawyers, not DJI.

It does coincidentally protect the operators who won't look at where they are flying in relation to the nearest airport, but don't think for a minute that the DNF database is there for you.

 

[jlummel]

[...] The Do Not Fly database built into the drones only protects DJI. If someone crashes a DJI drone in a Do Not Fly zone that is in the DJI database and lawsuits result, it will be the DJI owner paying for lawyers, not DJI. [...]

There is where the mutual self-interest thing comes in. If you crash because of a problem with the manufacture of the drone, DJI is still bears responsibility (and any lawyer worth his salt would pursue this on behalf of his client). If you somehow were to by-pass or disable the built in protections (such as disabling the GPS), well then DJI wouldn't be responsible at all now would they? Either way, at best it only gives DJI a "..well, we tried!" defense which may or may not actually work in any particular legal action.

Actually you could make the case that DJI has exposed themselves to more product liability simply because they DID try! The failure of the No-Fly operation could become THE key issue in an otherwise open and shut legal action.

But for the large majority of issues that could and would arise with no-fly zones, that feature protects YOU as much as it protects DJI. Will it be 100% effective? No, probably not. Will it reduce incidents to almost none? You betcha!!

It's like the handrail on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, it's there to protect the park and operationally it accomplishes this by protecting you, IF you allow it to. Climb up on the rail and jump over it and you become SOLELY responsible for the results. But if you lean against the rail and it breaks, that's the park's fault!

But the single biggest benefit that WE ALL get from the DJI No-Fly database is that the industry is self-policing, which (hopefully) could prevent draconian regulations from being enacted that ground all of us (and destroys DJI's business). Being pro-active like that is certainly in all of our interests, even though there are no guarantees that bureaucrats won't be bureaucrats and we STILL could get grounded in the end.

Again, if you don't like it then vote with your dollars by choosing to purchase a different brand of drones.

And just to spell it out, yeah, I don't really give a rat's *** who's butt DJI is trying to cover because by hook or by crook, they are covering mine as well. I LIKE that (just like I enjoy having that rail on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon)!! If you were less selfish at how you see this and bother to take in the whole picture you might find you agree with it more than you disagree with it as the benefits certainly outweigh the bad regardless of why DJI was motivated to do it!

 

[ScottyT]

It would be really beneficial if DJI had an official policy on data protection, data security, data reuse / resale and gov't data requests. It's all well and good if we're told here informally but official statements would be a lot more reassuring.

Totally agree; I'm not getting why your comments are seen as disparaging.

This type of information should be formalized and provided accordingly. It's what all responsible companies that house user data do. I've not seen much if anything official statements - just third hand information spread throughout the forums. Do DJI even have a Communications department? As a customer, it's impossible to know what DJI's 'official' view on anything is.

 

[Accuracy One]

Well this long thread is a sign of the times we have been transformed into. With the NSA data collection of everything and our digital cameras having GPS on them now and all the confirmed stories about backdoors on smart phones and surveillance cameras at every intersection and all over town and some cities have license plate recognition technology or toll tag readers in some spots to track you. It is no wonder that a lot of people think this could happen. I could not believe that I drove 3-hours each way out to an incredible spot to fly and video and could only scream because DJI would not let me fly my drone. Their dam firmware update had not been upgraded after my daughter used my flying tablet on WiFi because her laptop needed to be charged. I could not even start the rotors for a frigging update that I did not need. So like everything else these days you don't own it, you just pay for it and somebody else controls it. If I have to walk to vote in 2016, I will.

 

[Jimmykjimmy]

But that guy who got a letter from the FAA, regarding him posting his videos on youtube with monetization constitutes commercial use, is still posting videos on youtube with monetization/ads... So it appears they backed off... Its not the video that is commercial use or an ad, its the method for delivering the video.

Anyone that's interested in what a drone lawyer has to say visit Drone Law Journal. That will take away all this BS about the FAA

 

[ianwood]

After some searching I found that DJI does have a privacy policy for the P3. So that people may understand for themselves, here it is excerpted from the Safety Guidelines And Disclaimer v1.0:

Data Storage and Usage
When you use our mobile app or our products or other software, data regarding the use and operation of the product, such as flight telemetry data (e.g., speed, altitude, battery life, and information about the gimbal and camera) and operations records, may be automatically or manually uploaded to and maintained on a DJI-designated server. The internal storage device incorporated into the product stores various types of data, including flight telemetry data. You may also provide flight telemetry data and other data to us when you manually transmit that information from the internal storage device to us.

The information that is automatically uploaded or manually uploaded to us does not include personal data (i.e., your name, address, email, or other information that specifically identifies you), but personal data, such as your user name, may become associated with, used to identify, or tagged to such uploaded information when we store it. We separately describe how we use your user name and other personal data on our privacy policy at http://www.dji.com/policy. By using the product, the mobile app or other software we distribute, or by manually providing data to us, you consent to the following:

• Our storage of any flight telemetry data and other data uploaded or provided to us, including in combination with your user name;
• Our use of any such data uploaded or provided (including your user name) in connection providing support and services to you and to improve our products;
• Our disclosure of such data uploaded or provided (including your user name) to our agents and/or contractors who may use it on our behalf or in connection with their relationship with us; and
• Our disclosure of such uploaded or provided data (including your user name) as required by law, in a matter of public safety or policy, as needed in connection with the transfer of our business assets, or if we believe in good faith that sharing the data is necessary to protect our rights or property.

 

[ScottyT]

Data Storage and Usage
When you use our mobile app or our products or other software, data regarding the use and operation of the product, such as flight telemetry data (e.g., speed, altitude, battery life, and information about the gimbal and camera) and operations records, may be automatically or manually uploaded to and maintained on a DJI-designated server

By using the product, the mobile app or other software we distribute, or by manually providing data to us, you consent to the following:

Our disclosure of such uploaded or provided data (including your user name) as required by law, in a matter of public safety or policy, as needed in connection with the transfer of our business assets, or if we believe in good faith that sharing the data is necessary to protect our rights or property.

Actually reads worse than I was expecting...

 

[louforgiveno]

Actually reads worse than I was expecting...

"ACCESS TO YOUR INFORMATION

At any time you may ask us to:

Send you a copy of your personal information which we retain.
Remove your personal information from our records.
and/or correct or update any of your personal information in our database."