DJI wants to make your data safer on its internet-enabled drones.
The company has launched a new Local Data Mode that halts data traffic between the drone and its DJI Pilot app, “in order to provide enhanced data privacy assurances for sensitive government and enterprise customers.”
Translation: DJI’s drones are now safer for all your spying needs.
When Local Data Mode is activated, the app stops sending or receiving any data over the internet, which the company notes adds an additional layer of security for flights that involve “sensitive missions.”
Keeping things extra secure, telemetry data on flight logs, like altitude, distance and speed, will remained stored on the drone even if the user deactivates Local Data Mode.
However, since the new mode blocks all data, more responsibility is put on the pilot for maintaining a safe and legal flight, since the app will not be able to detect the user’s location or show the map and geofencing information such as ‘No Fly Zones’ and temporary flight restrictions.
This could be especially tricky in Canada, where recreational drones face some fairly restrictive rules.
DJI notes on top of the loss of those services, when a drone is in Local Data Mode it will not notify drone operators of firmware updates.
Regardless of whether the mode is switched on or not, photos and videos captured are always stored locally on the drone’s SD card.
The mode will be available in the next update of the DJI Pilot app on its CrystalSky remote and select Android tablets.
To activate it, drone operators can open the DJI Pilot app, click on ‘Activate LDM Mode’ and enter a password that will be required to deactivate the mode when they decide to go online again.
Source: DJI
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