GSA to Remove Almost All Drones from Contract Offerings Over China Concerns

GSA to Remove Almost All Drones from Contract Offerings Over China Concerns

The General Services Administration—the federal government’s central buyer—will no longer include drones in its suite of offerings, except those previously approved by a small innovation unit inside the Defense Department.


Citing the threat of Chinese manufacturers, GSA officials announced Tuesday the agency will be canceling contracts offering drones from all but five suppliers on the Multiple Award Schedules, the set of pre-vetted contracts that offer everything from paper clips to helicopters to data centers.


“GSA is removing all identified drones that are not approved through the [Defense Innovation Unit’s] Blue sUAS program from MAS contracts,” a GSA spokesperson told Nextgov. “Affected vendors will be notified by their contracting officer and only the identified drones will be removed from their MAS contract.”


The agency plans to have all non-DIU-approved drones removed from MAS contracts by Feb. 1, the spokesperson said.


Security experts have expressed concerns that unmanned aerial vehicles—colloquially known as drones—made in China or other adversarial countries could be used to spy on U.S. interests by exfiltrating data back to the country of origin.


“The increase of buying and usage of drones/[unmanned aerial vehicle] devices … poses a unique set of challenges and security risks such as: surveillance, theft, disruption and/or use of selective federal information or federal information networks,” according to a post on GSA’s outreach site, Interact. “Also, since China is the dominant manufacturer of drones, there is an increased risk of non-compliance with existing procurement law, including the Trade Agreements Act and Section 889 of the NDAA for FY19.”


China has long been the largest manufacturer of drones worldwide, causing sup ..

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