Drones take centre stage in US-China war on data harvesting

Critics of DJI warn the drone maker may be channelling reams of sensitive data to Chinese intelligence agencies

In video reviews of the latest drone models to his 80,000 YouTube subscribers, Indiana college student Carson Miller doesn’t seem like an unwitting tool of Chinese spies.

Yet that’s how the US is increasingly viewing him and thousands of other Americans who purchase drones built by Shenzhen-based SZ DJI Technology Co, the world’s top producer of unmanned aerial vehicles. Miller, who bought his first DJI model in 2016 for $500 and now owns six of them, shows why the company controls more than half of the US drone market. 

“If tomorrow DJI were completely banned,” the 21-year-old said, “I would