New South Wales Police’s planned six-month trial of drones made by Chinese company DJI highlights broader considerations about management of risks associated with technologies that are owned, controlled or influenced by foreign entities.
As with any new operational capability, particularly those involving data collection, it’s vital to ensure operational, legal, technical and partnership factors are adequately assessed. Clear assurance and transparent risk management helps build confidence in any decision taken.
On 19 February, NSW Police announced a trial in which DJI drones would assist officers responding to incidents in the outback town of Moree, with the technology set to expand to other locations in the future. The trial provides the means to not just evaluate operational benefit but, critically, also any potential security or governance considerations before determining longer-term arrangements.
Use of drones has become routine in modern policing, but in today’s contested technological environment such tools can bring strategic risks.
DJI is no marginal player. By most credible market estimates, it accounts for well over half of the global commercial drone market and supplies a substantially higher share of police and emergency services drones.
As a Chinese company, it’s subject to laws that compel organisations to cooperate with state authorities. For example, Chinese companies are required to ‘support, assist and cooperate with state intelligence work’.
This doesn’t automatically exclude Australian use of DJI products. But the risks of exploitation by Beijing should be considered when assessing equipment that collects high-resolution imagery, telemetry and metadata.
At least four variables should inform any possible longer-term adoption of DJI products.
First is the mission scope. A drone deployed for flood mapping in Lismore or for missing-person searches in the Blue Mountains presents a different risk profile from one used in organised crime investigations, counter-narcotics operations or joint counter-terrorism taskforces. If the equipment is confined to lower-sensitivity public safety functions and segregated from national security investigations, the exposure may be more manageable.
But the risk of operational compromise is higher, less tolerable and more important to manage if the equipment becomes embedded in operations involving foreign interference, espionage or transnational organised crime.
Second is data lifecycle management. A drone is a node in a network; its risk profile is shaped by the way it and its data output are integrated into and governed within wider operations, both domestic and international. Is data, including imagery, telemetry and associated metadata, stored locally on encrypted devices, on Australian-based servers under national control, or in cloud environments? Are systems air-gapped from broader policing intelligence platforms? Are firmware updates independently verified and auditable?
Third is infrastructure connectivity. If drone feeds are integrated into statewide intelligence systems, enriched with licence plate or facial recognition data or shared across intergovernmental taskforces, the equipment becomes part of a larger security architecture. In a federated country such as Australia, technical design and governance are increasingly inseparable; equipment risk is defined by system context, not marketing specifications.
That thinking has, for example, informed decisions in the United States. In 2020, the US Department of the Interior grounded its DJI fleet over security concerns. And in late 2025 the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) excluded DJI-manufactured drones and critical drone components from receiving the FCC equipment authorisation needed for importation to or sale in the US. That reflected assessments of data security and supply-chain exposure within connected government systems.
Fourth is the supply chain and market structure. DJI’s global position didn’t emerge in a vacuum. China’s industrial strategy has long combined state guidance, preferential financing and scale advantages to build dominance in targeted sectors. Indeed, over the past decade Chinese drone firms have achieved rapid cost reductions and global market share expansion.
The strategic question is whether reliance on a single, dominant critical-technology supplier creates structural vulnerability, even where individual deployments appear manageable. Resilience options narrow as alternatives diminish. If NSW Police has no viable alternative to Chinese drones, that is itself a problem in need of fixing.
Australia has invested significant effort in creating trusted vendor frameworks and supply-chain resilience policies. ASPI’s work on technology risk has argued for vendor-agnostic assessments grounded in corporate governance, jurisdictional exposure, legal-compulsion risk and data lifecycle control. This complements the federal government’s own approach to foreign owned, controlled or influenced technologies. The purpose is to move beyond decisions driven solely by price and performance or even just country of origin. Risk is contextual, system-dependent and cumulative.
The broader point here is coherence. In a security environment characterised by overlapping crises—cyber intrusions, foreign interference, transnational crime, natural disasters—technology decisions accumulate. A tactical capability choice can, over time, have strategic effects.
In the case of NSW Police’s trial, a comprehensive legal, technical and strategic assessment may well have been conducted, or at least is underway or planned. DJI systems may be tightly scoped, air-gapped, subject to rigorous firmware verification and excluded from sensitive mission sets. If so, saying so would strengthen public and partner confidence.
The questions that most need answered are practical. What mission sets are authorised? How is data stored, audited and deleted? Who verifies software integrity and update pathways? How are legal-compulsion risks assessed and documented? Has the effect on Australia’s international policing partnerships been considered? If strategic circumstances shift, how rapidly can the capability be substituted?
Australia needs disciplined, whole-of-nation risk management. Law enforcement capability, industrial policy, international partnerships and public trust are interconnected. Ensuring alignment across those domains helps ensure we will not fly blind in a contested technological environment.
