DJI has announced significant changes to its data policy, impacting drone operators in the United States and around the world. Effective June 2024, DJI will disable the flight records synchronization option for U.S. consumer and enterprise drone operators. This decision aligns with DJI's ongoing efforts to meet market demands and privacy expectations.
U.S. Policy Change
Starting June 12, the "Sync Flight Data" option in the DJI flight app settings will be disabled for U.S. operators. Attempting to upload local flight records will result in an error message. By June 27, this option will be removed entirely from the settings page in the DJI Fly app, and by mid-July for DJI Pilot 2.
DJI advises operators who have previously opted into syncing their flight records to download and back up their data promptly. Once the sync option is disabled, any flight data that is not backed up locally will be irretrievable.
Global Change: Thumbnail Previews
Globally, the update will also remove thumbnail previews from the DJI Fly app interface for consumer drones. Enterprise drones, which do not feature thumbnail previews, will remain unaffected.
Impact on Users
For U.S. operators traveling abroad, the flight record synchronization feature may reappear in regions where it is still enabled. However, this option will be disabled again upon returning to the U.S. For non-U.S. operators traveling to the U.S., flight records generated during their stay will not be synced.
Users will still have access to their flight records manually stored on their controller or SD card. Third-party flight software using DJI’s Mobile SDK will remain unaffected by this update.
Recommendation
DJI encourages users to back up their cloud-based flight records to prevent data loss. While previously uploaded flight records remain available for download, those generated within the U.S. will be deleted moving forward. This measure underscores DJI’s commitment to balancing user convenience with privacy expectations.
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