Back in August, drone maker DJI announced that they will be introducing a new privacy mode for their drones. Basically what this meant is that drone owners could operate their drones without data being transferred back to DJI’s servers, so for those concerned about their privacy, this was a welcome feature.The good news is that in an announcement by DJI, it looks like the feature is now live and available to drone owners. According to the company, “Since Local Data Mode blocks all internet data, the DJI Pilot app will not be able to detect the location of the user, show the map and geofencing information such as No Fly Zones and temporary flight restrictions. In addition, it will not notify drone operators of firmware updates. Telemetry data on flight logs such as altitude, distance or speed will remain stored on the aircraft even if the user deactivates Local Data Mode.”
DJI is also making it a point to note that regardless of whether “Local Data Mode” is enabled or not, things like your photos and videos will be stored locally on the drone’s SD card, meaning that there will never be an instance that DJI will have access to that information unless users willingly choose to share it on the SkyPixel community or other websites.
Brendan Schulman, DJI’s Vice President of Policy and Legal Affairs adds, “DJI is committed to protecting the privacy of its customers’ photos, videos and flight logs. Local Data Mode will provide added assurances for customers with heightened data security needs.”