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The Newport Beach Police Department will no longer use a Chinese-made drone from a company that federal officials blacklisted out of concerns they could be used for spying.
It comes after revelations last year that many police departments throughout Orange County – including the Sheriff’s department – use Da Jiang Innovations, or DJI drones, which were blacklisted by federal officials in 2022.
[Read: Why do OC Police Departments Use Drones Blacklisted by the Federal Government?]
Newport Beach City Council members voted to retire the Chinese drone at the Feb. 25 meeting, when they also voted to add seven new drones from BRINC, a Seattle-based company, to their police department’s inventory.
The city’s expected to spend just over $2 million over five years to purchase the new drones for the police department, coming out of the city’s general fund.
A city staff report notes that the Chinese-made DJI drone, which they purchased in 2016 to gauge effectiveness of drone usage, no longer meets Federal Aviation Administration transponder regulations.
The DJI drones also face concerns from the federal government that the Chinese government could use the drones for spying.
Newport Beach city officials discussed developing a drone policy last summer to address security and privacy concerns.
A city staff report notes that drones are supposed to help the police quickly respond to crimes.
“A drone program will enhance both proactive and reactive patrols and can free up patrol officers to handle more high priority calls for service,” reads the city staff report.
Mayor Joe Stapleton said at the meeting that he’s excited to have the drones flying around and thanked the city’s police department.
“[Given] all the work that you guys did to put this together, we’re very excited [to] give you all the tools and resources you need to protect our residents here in Newport,” Stapleton said.
Blake Resick, the founder of the Seattle-based drone company, was present at the city council meeting with one of the drones.
“It’s designed to take off from a citywide network of recharging stations and then hook into computer aided dispatch,” he said. “The second someone calls 911, we grab that GPS coordinate and then we use it to automatically dispatch an aircraft to that location – so we can respond to that 911 call with this technology in tens of seconds.”
The six Responder drones will be able to respond to emergency calls and major collision investigations, and can be used for natural disaster management, according to a city staff report.
Five will be placed in locations dispersed throughout the city, and the sixth will be used for patrol or detective operations, according to a city staff report.
The seventh drone, a Lemur 2, is smaller and will support high risk police entries into buildings and interior searches. It uses night vision and thermal imaging, and has two-way communication, according to the state-mandated police inventory disclosures.
Emily Wilson is a Voice of OC intern. You can reach her at egwilson33@gmail.com or on Twitter @ewilssson.
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