Senators: “The use of these types of drones at sensitive and secure facilities creates the potential …for the transfer of important national security-related information to the Chinese government”
WASHINGTON – Today, U.S. Senators Maggie Hassan (D-NH), a senior member of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, and Gary Peters (D-MI), Ranking Member of the Committee, pressed several U.S. construction contractors that work at homeland security and national security facilities on their relationships with the Chinese drone manufacturer Da-Jiang Innovations (DJI). In letters to Hensel Phelps, Brasfield & Gorrie, and the Bechtel Corporation, the Senators pushed the companies for answers on their relationships with DJI and their usage of Chinese-made drones despite the national security threats they pose.
“The U.S. government considers the use of Chinese-made drones generally — and DJI drones specifically — a threat to national security and prohibits their use by federal agencies or contractors. Recent reporting, however, has raised questions about the extent to which key contractors have complied with these prohibitions and the nature of their relationships with DJI,” the Senators wrote. “The use of these types of drones at sensitive and secure facilities creates the potential to provide a pathway for the transfer of important national security-related information to the Chinese government.”
Read the letters the Senators sent to Hensel Phelps, Brasfield & Gorrie, and Bechtel, or the letter to Hensel Phelps below.
Dear Mr. Choutka:
I am writing to request information about your company’s relationship with the Chinese drone manufacturer Da-Jiang Innovations (DJI) and compliance with federal rules regarding the use of DJI drones, as well as the potential exposure of sensitive information about defense, nuclear, and border security facilities. The U.S. government considers the use of Chinese-made drones generally — and DJI drones specifically — a threat to national security and prohibits their use by federal agencies or contractors. Recent reporting, however, has raised questions about the extent to which key contractors have complied with these prohibitions and the nature of their relationships with DJI.
Construction companies use drones for a variety of purposes, including, but not limited to, surveying and mapping, tracking construction progress, and inspecting potential safety issues. Such drones can be equipped with a variety of cameras and sensors, including systems that use lasers to map the exact shape of buildings, terrain, and vegetation. These drone-supported cameras can capture large amounts of information about the locations they are employed at, including strategically important locations and secure facilities. Importantly, detailed information about the design of secure facilities is often sensitive and can be classified if it shows undisclosed security features or potential vulnerabilities.
Large construction companies were early adopters of drone technology, a market DJI has dominated. Companies that use DJI construction drones include the builders of some of the most sensitive defense and border security sites in the United States. This includes the Bechtel Corporation (Bechtel), which has constructed nuclear weapons labs and missile bases and was one of the first engineering and construction companies to establish a drone program. As early as 2017, Bechtel cohosted a webinar with DJI entitled, “Getting Started with Drones in Construction.” Likewise, Hensel Phelps, a contractor for nuclear weapons facilities as well as ports of entry along the Southwest Border, was the first construction company to obtain government approval to fly construction drones over populated areas. A profile of the company and an interview with a Hensel Phelps executive from 2020 remains available on DJI’s website. Brasfield & Gorrie, another construction contractor at ports of entry and U.S. military bases, was the subject of a DJI case study in 2017 that highlighted drones’ data collection capabilities.
According to a January 2024 joint bulletin from the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Chinese-manufactured drones present three key security vulnerabilities. First, they provide a means of data transfer and collection. The bulletin states that “[drones] controlled by smartphones and other internet-connected devices provide a path for [drone] data egress and storage, allowing for intelligence gathering on U.S. critical infrastructure.” Second, patching and firmware updates to drones could “introduce unknown data collection and transmission capabilities without the user’s awareness.” Third, drones connected to a network create “the potential for data collection and transmission of a broader type — for example, sensitive imagery, surveying data, facility layouts [emphasis added].” As CISA and the FBI note, these risks are present with all drone technology but are especially concerning with Chinese-made drones, as Chinese law compels cooperation between private companies and state intelligence services. In short, it appears that the use of these types of drones at sensitive and secure facilities creates the potential to provide a pathway for the transfer of important national security-related information to the Chinese government. For its part, DJI disputes claims that it poses a national security risk to the United States and has commissioned several third-party audits appearing to show that its drones are secure.
The U.S. government, however, has reported on potential security risks associated with DJI since at least 2017. In recent years, Congress and the Executive Branch have sought to address these possible risks, including through a 2019 Congressional prohibition on the Department of Defense (DOD) using or purchasing Chinese-made drones; the 2020 addition of DJI to the Department of Commerce Entity List, designating the company as a national security concern; a 2021 executive order advising all federal agencies against purchasing and using drones manufactured by foreign adversaries; and the October 2022 addition of DJI to the DOD list of Chinese military companies, which triggered a statutory ban on government contracts using DJI drones. In November 2024, the General Services Administration (GSA) issued acquisition regulations that further codified and clarified prohibitions on the use of Chinese drones by federal agencies and in government contracts.
Despite these restrictions, recent reports have raised questions about the extent to which construction contractors may be using prohibited drones on government contracts, as well as the extent to which data gathered by approved drones may be stored on vulnerable computer networks. The GSA Office of the Inspector General (OIG), for example, has found multiple cases of construction contractors using prohibited DJI drones. These include a major contractor that “frequently used a [DJI] drone to take aerial photographs to document construction progress” at the San Luis, Arizona, Port of Entry as recently as January 2025. Another GSA OIG report describes the use of DJI drones at six Northern Border ports of entry as recently as August 2022. Corporate social media posts also suggest ongoing relationships between federal contractors and DJI. For example, in July 2025, a Bechtel post on LinkedIn about the 10-year anniversary of the company’s drone program featured a DJI drone and celebrated more than 1.5 million images collected by drones over the past decade. DJI drones are also featured in a September 2024 promotional YouTube video from Hensel Phelps and a May 2024 article about how Brasfield & Gorrie combines data from drones with other sources, among other examples.
To aid Congress in understanding security issues associated with the potential use of DJI or other Chinese-made drones at sensitive government facilities, please provide responses to the following document and information requests for Fiscal Years 2020 through 2025, unless otherwise noted:
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