Target 7: Chinese-made drones used by police in New Mexico

By Sasha Lenninger

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    New Mexico (KOAT) — They may be small, but they’re used for big tasks. Law enforcement in New Mexico is using drones to find missing hikers or even reconstruct accident scenes.

“We can make sure that we’re clearing traffic quicker for S.W.A.T. and tactical operations, also for the drag races we’re starting to see even more on Tramway and Paseo,” said Bernalillo County Sheriff John Allen in a 2017 interview with Action 7 News.

The drones, quickly providing first responders a bird’s-eye view of areas covered more slowly on the ground. As former New Mexico State Police Sgt. Chad Pierce showed in a search-and-rescue demonstration in 2017, “Right now, I’m at 52 feet and 520 feet away from us. And you can see tracks.”

In 2017, New Mexico State Police became the first agency in the state to get the technology. Pierce explained how much drones can speed up police work. “Imagine a major crash scene or crime scene that I need to document. I can fly over it. In 10 minutes, I have video, I have pictures, I have everything I need for our investigators,” Pierce said.

Albuquerque Police and the Bernalillo County Sheriff’s office now also rely on drones. “We have a DJI Matrice, the 210 model, which is a little bit larger. It’s easier to do search and rescue, larger grid searches,” says BCSO Deputy Jeremy Sanchez.

BCSO got the drones this year. And plan to get many more.

But there is concern about where these drones are made. Do they come from the U.S? Or from a foreign country? And if it is made overseas, can the drones pose a threat to national security?

DJI is one of the dominant makers of drones used in the U.S. The company is based in China. Company officials told our National Investigative Unit DJI has numerous audits showing its drones do not send data back to China.

While the company’s privacy policy reads, “your information collected by DJI may be transferred to and accessed by DJI entities and business partners globally,” the company’s Head of Global Policy, Adam Welsh,e says such transfers of information would only happen in certain situations. “The only case where data would be transferred to China, and you would be notified of this fact, is if there were some sort of warranty issue or there were some sort of malfunction with the drone,” Welsh said.

But some homeland security officials remain concerned China’s government could use drone data to spy on Americans, map U.S. infrastructure and gather intelligence about national security sites.

Florida, Mississippi, Tennessee and Arkansas have all banned police departments in their states from using drones made in China.

Arkansas State Senator Justin Boyd said, “I think it’s important that when you have a Chinese military-funded organization and they control 80% of the market, you have to give other opportunities out there for privacy and security.”

Congress is also debating a federal drone ban bill. U.S. military and intelligence agencies have already banned them.

Though some say the security risks of drones do not outweigh their benefits. Florida State Senator Tom Wright is a member of the state senate’s Domestic Security Committee, telling our National Investigative Unit, “I’m not going to let one officer risk his life or her life because somebody thinks that these things talk to China.”

New Mexico State Police’s two drones are both made in China by DJI.

BCSO owns seven DJI drones from China, a Parrot made in France, and one by Autel made in the U.S.

The Albuquerque Police Department says it also uses a drone made in China.

New Mexico’s laws on drones are lax compared to others across the country. Senate Bill 556, passed in 2013, prohibits the use of drones by private or state entities for unauthorized surveillance. So, it’s illegal to surveil anyone in the state without their consent. It’s also illegal to use a drone for hunting or for locating protected species.

But New Mexico has no laws prohibiting the use of foreign-made drones.

Editor’s note: KOAT owns a drone, used for news-gathering purposes, manufactured by DJI.

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