Parrot slams DJI drone data security during Anafi USA launch

Parrot has used the launch of its new Anafi USA commercial drone to criticize the data security practices of its main rival DJI, which makes popular drones like the DJI Mavic Air 2.

The French drone maker has worked with the US Army to develop the Parrot Anafi USA, which is an expensive commercial drone designed mainly for first responders, firefighters, search-and-rescue teams and security agencies.

And while the Anafi USA is interesting technologically – the rugged drone features 32x optical zoom and a FLIR thermal camera – it wasn’t the main headline from a launch that gave equal emphasis to criticizing its main rival, the Chinese drone maker DJI.

Talking about Parrot drones in general, Henri Seydoux (CEO of Parrot Drones), emphasized that its products are all GDPR compliant, which means that “no data without the user consent is sent to any place, to any server anywhere”. He added: “The data is yours. And we follow completely the rules. Even more important, Parrot is the technology company who writes the drone software.”

This is where the launch became really interesting, as Henri Seydoux went from cloaked digs at its rival to calling out DJI specifically for not only lacking equivalent data security, but suppressing data leaks and even changing data leak methods once they’ve been detected. 

“Our software is available to any questions, to any customer that asks us questions about the functionalities of the software. All the functionalities of the software are described and documented and can be shown to the user,’ he said. “And I don’t believe it’s the case for DJI drones. It’s very questionable how much or what exactly does the software from DJI drones.” This