China, which claims to be the world's largest producer of civilian drones, is taking more severe action than most nations against those who modify drones to circumvent laws.
Recent court cases have demonstrated that in China, changing a drone's boundaries can result in jail time, whereas most other jurisdictions treat similar breaches as misdemeanors with penalties, as reported by South China Morning Post.
Although the majority of the modifications are likely made for amusement, Beijing sees such violations through the lens of national security.
A Beijing-based architect named Luo Tien claims some car owners pay hackers to unlock computerized locks in their cars so they may drive them anywhere they want, usually for pleasure and leisure.
The Orders of the Court
The courts have decided that it is illegal to disable the flight blocks and that doing so is punishable by penalties or even jail time.
In April 2022, a hacker who had been detained in southeast Fujian Province was given a six-month prison term for "threaten[ing] national security and disturbing public order."
According to the People's Court Daily, an official publication of the judiciary, he also had 6,850 yuan (US$940) in proceeds from unlocking drones for 21 owners confiscated.
State-run television station CCTV claimed that the conviction of two hackers in Shanghai four months earlier for "providing programs to invade computer information systems" set a precedent. One of the two received a seven-month prison sentence, while the other received a five-month detention sentence.
The modification of drones is expressly prohibited by a Beijing city anti-terrorism rule that went into effect in January 2019.
While the fines may deter some people, others would still find the thrill too alluring to refuse, according to a computer engineering professor who lives in Beijing and claims to have a drone but rarely uses it.
An Extreme Penalty?
The penalty was described as "an extreme and overboard" interpretation of the law by James Zimmerman, a partner in the Beijing office of the American law firm Perkins Coie LLP.
Drone owners are required to register with the government under a national law on drones that was established in June; failure to do so might result in a punishment of 20,000 yuan.
According to Michael Frank, a senior fellow at the Wadhwani Centre for AI and Advanced Technologies at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a Washington-based think tank, drones are "dual-use technologies" that can be used for both defense and civil purposes, such as photography and agricultural monitoring.
In a road map published in August 2022, China, which is the world leader in drone technology, highlighted its goals: to promote research, development, and deployment of the technology for enterprises, including in logistics and passenger transport.
Beijing declared in July that it would restrict the export of long-range civilian drones, ostensibly out of concern that they would be modified for use in the conflict in Ukraine.
In order to stop its drones from being used in combat, DJI Technology, the top drone manufacturer in China, said in April 2022 that it was leaving Russia and Ukraine.
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